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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



HELLADIAN VISTAS 



Helladian Vistas 



By 
DON DANIEL QUINN, PH.D. 

Successively 

Student at the American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Greece 

Professor of Greek at Mt. St. Mary 's College, Maryland 

Professor of Greek at the Catholic University, Washington, and 

Rector of the Leonteion, Athens, Greece 

Now 

Pastor of St. Paul's, Yellow Springs, Ohio, and 
Professor at Antioch College 



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YELLOW SPRINGS, OHIO 
1908 



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Copyright 1908 By 
Daniel Quinn 

Published September 1908 



NOTE 

The following chapters have already appeared in 
print as magazine articles. They are republished with 
the kind permission of the editors of Harper's Maga- 
zine, the American Catholic Quarterly, the Catholic 
World, Donahoe's Magazine, and the Catholic Uni- 
versity Bulletin. 

Frequent repetitions of thought and expression 
have been allowed to remain, although almost inex- 
cusable. 

To my many friends in Greece and in America I 
am grateful for much assistance kindly given. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Balkania I 

''Mother of Arts" 5 

The Akropolis of Athens 20 

Higher Education in Greece of Today . . . 33 

An Athenian Cemetery 42 

The Church of Greece 52 

The Mystic Rites of Elevsis 63 

Delphi 87 

In Bozotia 102 

The Land of the Klephts . . . . " . -125 

The Vale of Tempe 140 

The Thessalic Plain 151 

In Arkadia 167 

Mega Spel^eon or the Monastery of the Great 

Cave 189 

The Games at Olympia 216 

The Ph^aks' Island 233 

The Kingdom of Odyssevs 255 

In Levkas 269 

The Flower of the East 288 

Kephallenia 307 

The Maniats . . . 325 

Mesolonghion 337 

The Argolid and the Mykenlanders . . .351 

Pre-Hellenic Writing in the ^Egean. . . .368 

The Hill of Hissarlik 390 

vii 



BALKANIA 

"Not dead but sleeping." 

There is in existence no one state or commonwealth 
occupying the entirety of that restless land which might 
have been called Balkania; but possibly there ought to 
have been such a commonwealth. There lies in the 
southeast corner of Europe a very wide tract of won- 
derful country richly adorned by nature and not 
entirely neglected by art, which for the nonce we are 
free to theoretically style "Balkania." "Balkania" is so 
much divided in nationality, religion, and government, 
that we are not accustomed to regard it as a unit in 
history, and are not used to designate it by any one 
common and general name. This "Balkania" includes 
all that portion of Europe which extends from Con- 
stantinople to Triest, and from the Danube to Cape 
Malea. 

There exists no nation of united peoples that might 
be called the "Balkan-folk," but such a nation could 
have been historically created. It would be an amalga- 
mated nation, as much mixed in its inhabitants as is 
any other civilized country. The Balkanmen would con- 
tain both Asiatic and European elements in their physi- 
cal constitution. Turks and Greeks and Vlachs and 
Bulgarmen and Slavs and Albanians would be ingredi- 
ent portions of that people. These are all very active' 
and vital elements, which, united, might have been the 
essence of a powerful state. The area of this state 
would be about identical with that of the Balkan Pen- 



2 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

insula. But there is no near probability of "Balkania" 
coming into a state's existence. These peoples are all 
hostile to each other, and fail to recognize or appreciate 
common interests. 

Balkanland was once Romaean, and could again have 
become Romaean under a government either Hellenic 
or Moslem. But the propitious opportunities have 
been neglected by both Greeks and Turks. As a 
Romsean state it would have continued to be heir to the 
strength and eminence of Byzantion. Had the Turks 
undertaken to form such a state they might have suc- 
ceeded if they only could have had the prudent fore- 
sight of separating statedom from Islamism. 

After the empire of Rome had been divided into two 
portions, the western portion was destroyed, in 476 
perhaps. But the eastern portion healed itself from 
its wounds of amputation, and rounded itself out into 
an independent empire which continued to exist until 
its great city, Constantinople, was subjugated by the 
Turks in 1453. The Byzantine empire was Romaean 
because it had been formed from the eastern half of 
the empire of Rome. It was the East-Roman state, 
and was molded out of Hellenic and Hellenistic ele- 
ments under government originally centered in western 
Rome. 

Most of this Balkanland has been dominated for 
four centuries by the Turks. These Moslem conquer- 
ors, however, have signally proved themselves unable to 
gain the respect and confidence of the peoples which 
they have externally subdued, and have been equally 
unable even outwardly to amalgamate all these inimical 
races into a compact and vigorous state or federation. 



BALKANIA 3 

Accordingly, these disunited peoples have always been 
incessantly looking forward to the dawning of their 
day of manumission from Moslem servitude. 

The Greeks were the first to succeed in acquiring 
freedom for a portion of their race, after a terrible 
struggle in the last century. But the liberated Greeks 
committed themselves exclusively to the narrower task 
of creating not a Romaean or Hellenistic nation, but a 
Hellenic one. In other words, the newly formed state 
of Greece set aside her potent Romsean traditions and 
retained only her Hellenic aspirations. This, if it was 
the nobler selection, was surely not the more remunera- 
tive one. The regenerated Greeks never set about 
creating a comprehensive and liberal Balkania. They 
were intent merely on forming a "Greater Greece. " 

This Hellenic ideal was not easy to be made accept- 
able to the other wilder races and tribes of the land. 
Greece therefore cannot be said so far to have been 
signally successful in the mission which she set herself 
to perform. 

Since the partial liberation of the Greeks, other Bal- 
kanic races have imitated them and have become more 
or less independent, or even free. But none have put 
themselves to the generous task of bringing into exist- 
ence a Romsean Balkania, to be formed of all the races 
on equal terms. Each race wishes the advancement of 
its own people only, and desires to dominate over the 
other races. There, therefore, has been never any 
whole-hearted, united action. 

Of all the races that, after the Turks, had the duty 
of constructing a Balkania, the Greeks and the new 
Hellenic state should have had the clearest conception 



4 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

and consciousness of this duty. But, except in the time 
of Alexander, the Greeks were never makers of exten- 
sive empires. They were the life and sustenance of 
several great states, but were hardly the creators of 
them. It was not therefore readily to be realized that 
they ever would rouse themselves to the onerous and 
tedious undertaking of creating a "Balkania;" although 
they might, by force of their superior natural endow- 
ments, become in such a federation the dominant and 
most vital race. 

But perhaps the influence of the Greeks has been 
greater on subsequent humanity than has been the influ- 
ence of any known state. It is infinitely nobler to be 
Hellenic than it is to be imperial. And although their 
future preponderance in this Balkanland is far from 
being an evident certainty, nevertheless their past 
beneficence and usefulness have been so great that we 
can never lose our admiration for them. 

This present series of articles, selected from essays 
devoted to the Balkan Peninsula, occupies itself exclu- 
sively with the Hellenes. These essays present, in a 
loosely correlated way, all kinds of information con- 
nected with the long life of a portion of the Greek 
nation, chiefly of that portion which inhabited or still 
inhabits the cities and provinces that now constitute the 
commonwealth of Greece or Hellas. 



"MOTHER OF ARTS" 

On the Mgean shore a city stands, 

Built nobly, pure the air and light the soil; 

Athens the eye of Greece. 

The men of ancient Athens have exercised an incal- 
culable influence over humanity. They have fixed 
certain norms of culture which the world in its best 
periods has ever since been striving to admire and to 
apply. It may be true that we do not always know 
how great is our indebtedness to the thinkers and doers 
of Athens ; we may even willingly ignore it. The fact 
nevertheless stands, that the debt exists, a fact which, 
when properly understood, honors both us and the old 
Athenians. 

Athens possessed the good fortune of not owning 
some of the qualities that are often thought to be neces- 
sary for a great and influential city. Athens was not 
the leading city of an extensive state. It was not the 
center and mistress of a wide empire, as was Rome. 
Indeed, being purely a Hellenic city with Hellenic cul- 
ture, it could not well have been the seat of an imperial 
government; for the ancient Hellenes were entirely 
incapable of appreciating the usefulness of vast empire. 
Therefore, although Athens was the greatest center 
and most influential city of the ancient Greeks, it was 
never the political seat of government over an exten- 
sive country ; it did not bear to Greece the relations of 
a capital to a state. 

Athens was not the head and directress of a state, 

5 



6 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

but was rather the whole state in its entirety. Accord- 
ing to Aristotle, a state should not be much larger than 
the area included within the radius of a herald's voice, 
when, shouting from the citadel, he calls the citizens 
to assemble for consultation regarding common inter- 
ests. This definition quite well suits the state of ancient 
Athens. It is true indeed that a crier's voice from the 
ramparts of the Akropolis cannot be heard over all 
the territory that was included within the common- 
wealth of the Athenians nor even over a fiftieth part 
of it. But still this territory was so small that a citizen 
who dwelt in the very remotest corner of the land, on 
Sounion's rocky steep, or beyond Marathon in Oropos 
or Rhamnous, could walk to Athens easily in the space 
between sunrise and sunset. Such was the extent of 
the peninsula of Attika, in which Athens was situated. 
Politically, Athens and Attika were identical. The 
Athenians did not cease to be citizens of Athens by 
dwelling not within the walls of the town but in the 
villages and villas that were in the midst of the sur- 
rounding fields and groves. No portion of Attika 
is so remote as to be invisible from the citadel of 
Athens, were it not that the near intervening mountains 
intercept the view. 

The notions which prevailed among the Athenians 
regarding the value of each individual citizen and his 
inherent rights made it impossible for them to under- 
stand a larger extent of their republic. Only once did 
they somewhat successfully try to establish a kind of 
empire, by attempting to hold the islands of the 
^Egean subjugate and tribute-bound. But the attempt 
was soon a failure, although the empire appeared under 



"MOTHER OF ARTS" 7 

the form of a republican confederacy, and had as its 
purpose the laudable intention of keeping all Asiatic 
aggressors away from all Greek lands. According 
to the better Athenian conception, a state was imper- 
fect in so far as any one citizen suffered. This was 
Solon's doctrine, perhaps, and Solon may be regarded 
as the law-making intellect of his contemporaries, the 
Athenians of the sixth century before Christ. It easily 
follows from this doctrine that the state and the citi- 
zen are two parties that meet each other on absolutely 
equal terms. By pressing these old doctrines to their 
full conclusions it would follow that the state is 
maimed if one member, one single individual, one citi- 
zen, is hurt. To try to have a perfect state wherein 
one citizen might legally suffer political wrong would 
be exactly the same, from a logical standpoint, as 
would be the attempt to metamorphose the number 
ninety-nine into one hundred. The old Athenians did 
not perhaps express these conclusions, but they felt 
them, and were influenced by them. 

With these notions of what a state is, and what the 
relations of each citizen to the united body of citizens, 
which was the state, it was impossible that the state 
extend itself over a wide stretch of territory. No citi- 
zen could be subject to the state; he could be nothing 
less than an integral member of the state. He there- 
fore had to reside near to where the head of the state 
showed itself, and where all legislation took place. It 
was impossible that any numerous set of officials inter- 
vene between him and the rest of the state, between 
him and the other citizens. The state was constituted 
of him plus the other citizens, and he could not be 



8 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

separated from the others by any great separation, 
even of place. 

Another reason why the Athenian commonwealth 
was always of narrow extent was the Greek's indiffer- 
ence as to the fate of those who were not in some 
special way associated with him or related to him. 
This fact is true for the modern Hellenes as well as for 
their classic forefathers. If a Greek saw his own people 
happy, he would not be much concerned about the 
possible fate or sufferings of the Persians or the Ibe- 
rians. At least his interest in strangers often exhausts 
itself with theoretical views and is not put into act. 
This explains why the Greeks have never intentionally 
been persistent propagators of their doctrines in dis- 
tant climes, but however are stern defenders of such 
doctrines at home, and resent all ideas of foreign 
propagandism. Their indifference as to the affairs of 
others, be it a virtue or be it a vice, contributed to 
make the Athenians unfit for the founding of an 
empire. 

Athens, therefore, was not the capital of a great 
commonwealth. It was itself a commonwealth, 
although, if we were to admit that the size and impor- 
tance of a commonwealth is measured by the extent 
of its lands, then we should have to admit also that this 
commonwealth of Athens was a very diminutive and 
insignificant one. 

But Athens, without having the burdens which 
molest the capital of a wide country, nevertheless had 
much of the advantages of such a capital. Just as in 
past years, Paris has been the city that in many respects 
moved' and enlivened and inspired all Europe, so was 



"MOTHER OF ARTS" 9 

Athens the city which was pre-eminent among all the 
cities of the Greeks. Nevertheless, the old Greeks were 
not subjects of the Athenian government any more 
than the Europeans of yesterday were necessarily sub- 
jects to the government which resided in Paris. There 
exists a higher kind of pre-eminence than that of gov- 
ernment. This higher pre-eminence was the one which 
Athens enjoyed among the peoples of the Greek-lands. 

Athens did not excel in everything. It had its 
specialties. Our notion of that city makes it to have 
been most highly pre-eminent in the arts and in the 
sciences, and in matters of culture generally. In so far 
as Athens can be noted for its political science and 
capability, the trend of its virtues is evident from what 
has above been stated; it was able to give to each and 
every unenslaved individual an amount of well- 
regulated freedom that no large state can easily fur- 
nish to its citizens. Many of the laws which were first 
formulated by its legislators passed over to Rome and 
from Rome they were propagated throughout the 
whole of Europe. Thus were created the legal codes 
that still regulate our pubic lives. 

There were other varieties of highly developed civil- 
ization that flourished previously to the Hellenic, or 
contemporaneously with it. But these civilizations 
have all vanished from the face of the earth. With 
the exception of the Hebraic, they have had but little 
direct influence on us. The Greek civilization never 
died out. It merely underwent various modifications, 
adapting itself to the various nations of Europe which 
adopted it. We are therefore at this present day more 
or less all of us Hellenic. That we have wonderfully 



io HELLADIAX VISTAS 

developed certain ideas and principles, which in the 
flourishing days of old Athens were still almost embry- 
onic, does not militate against this truth. It is not 
necessary to claim that the ancient Greeks or more 
especially the Athenians were in any way our superiors. 
We have merely asserted that they were our intellectual 
and scientific forefathers and teachers. As their spirit- 
ual children and pupils we may have gloriously sur- 
passed them. At least we know that we have not kept 
all of their teaching just where they left it. Inability 
to develop and increase our inheritance would mean 
that we are unworthy to be either their children or 
their pupils. We seem in many lines of thought and 
action to have made great advances. 

If we are all more or less Hellenic, then it is not 
stretching words too far to say that we are all more or 
less Athenian. For Athens was the center from which 
most generously and bounteously was given forth the 
Hellenic light which has enlightened us. 

Being Athenians in some way or other, and being 
in some way Hellenic, it is always alluring to us to 
know something about our spiritual forefathers. It is 
also interesting to know something about this charmed 
city, this city of the soul, where once lived and moved 
these men who bequeathed to us our treasure of cul- 
ture. But we cannot understand the attractions of these 
places nor undergo the purifying influence of these 
surroundings unless our soul is akin to higher ideas 
and higher actions. Those whose footsteps climb to 
the mossy rim of Hippokrene receive no monetary 
remuneration. If a man has been taught by degrading 
circumstances to think and believe proportionately to 



"MOTHER OF ARTS" n 

the pay which he receives therefor he should never 
hope to dwell under Grecian skies. Hellenism is not a 
matter of wealth or authority. A wood-chopper from 
the western part of our great wide country who came 
to Athens for a consul's salary could see nothing in 
Athens of today nor feel the mysterious throbbings of 
her historic existence. To him Athens was the most 
deceitful and despicable land on the circle of the globe. 
If one has no affinity to Hellenism and to the spirit 
of old Athens, he had better never enter the blue waters 
around this land nor step on her time-worn shores. 

Although Athens appears at the head of Hellenism 
in the ages that have influenced later civilization, this 
city was not always the first in the land. Hellenic cul- 
ture was very widely diffused and very much varie- 
gated. Before the formation of the Roman empire, 
there were times at which Hellenism flourished in a 
large part of Asia Minor, in a portion of the Balkan 
Peninsula, in Egypt, in Sicily, in Southern Italy. The 
Ionic civilization of Asia Minor was not the same in 
detail as was the civilization of the Peloponnesos or 
that of the iEgean Isles or that of Attika. Athens 
therefore never had the monopoly of Hellenism, and 
there were epochs of Hellenism when other cities were 
more important than Athens. 

Athens is a very old city. No records tell of its 
first founding. The only book in whose pages we can 
read the earliest history of this city is the succession 
of strata formed by the debris which grew higher and 
higher, as generations of inhabitants succeeded each 
other. Our knowledge of ancient myths may serve us 
well in reading and interpreting this book of the strata. 



12 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

From these sources it is proven that Athens and its 
territory of Attika were inhabited, and possessed 
various arts and handicrafts away back in the 
Mykenseic ages, perhaps as remotely as the third mil- 
lennium before Christ. But of its importance in those 
days little is positive; and the probability is that other 
cities like Mykense or Knosos or Ilion outranked it both 
in civilization and in wealth. The greatness of Athens, 
as we know it, began not long before the Medic wars. 
It was these wars that suddenly elevated Athens to 
the eminence to which she had gradually been 
approaching. When these wars were over, or more 
exactly, after the three eventful victories of Marathon 
and Salamis and Platsea had been won, Athens found 
herself respected, vigorous, and ambitious. Iktinos, 
Kallikrates, and other such builders began to construct 
the wonders of Doric, Ionic, and Korinthiac architec- 
ture. Pheidias and his school and rivals put them- 
selves to the task of chiseling out of Pentelic and 
Parian stone the most perfect works that ever have 
come from sculptors' hands. Victorious army-leaders 
were transformed into inspired orators and guided the 
turbulent wisdom of the public assemblies. ^Eschylos 
and Sophokles and Evripides produced their inimitable 
tragedies before audiences sitting in the open air on 
the slopes of the hill of the citadel. Sokrates took up 
the nascent science of philosophy and prepared the way 
for the two greatest theorists of the Hellenic world, 
Platon the poetic idealist and Aristotle the logician, 
sage, and scientist. Athenian fleets defended the 
Greek cities of the sea. Athenian armies compelled 
all rival Greek cities on the mainland to acknowledge 



"MOTHER OF ARTS" 13 

the dignity and eminence of the Attic commonwealth. 

But it must ever be borne in mind that the Greeks 
were never united into one state. They never, in their 
best days, cared to form any kind of general confed- 
eration, not even for mutual defense against foreign 
enemies. It was with great difficulty and partly by 
accident that a powerful but exceedingly short-lived 
combination was made against the invading Persians 
in the early part of the fifth century. Love of local 
autonomy may perhaps sometimes have its faults. It 
usually prevented the Greeks from consolidating them- 
selves against common dangers. But it led them still 
farther. They were constantly involved in petty wars 
against each other. The greatest of these wars was 
the one which began about four hundred and thirty 
years before Christ. The chief belligerents then were 
the Athenians and the Spartans. This war lasted, 
with intermissions, near on to twenty-seven years. 
When it closed Athens was defeated and irreparably 
humiliated. From that time her decline began. 

Her days of decline, however, were by no means 
inglorious. Arts and sciences still flourished. Her 
patriots were as enthusiastic as ever, but they had 
become accustomed to exhibit their patriotism more 
by rhetoric and display than by self-sacrificing deeds. 
A new enemy arose. At least so thought many Athe- 
nians and other Greeks. This enemy was Philip of 
Makedon. 

Philip of Makedon was not a foreigner. He was 
not a barbarian. Genuine Greek blood coursed in his 
hot veins. The repugnance felt by the Athenians and 
other Greeks against Philip was not based on the pre- 



14 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

sumption that he was of a different nationality. They 
hated him because he was an imperialist, and what 
was worse an imperialist who wished to place the 
center of Hellenism outside the borders of the little 
country where Athens and Sparta and Thebes and 
Argos had so long been accustomed to hold their 
autonomous sway. Philip conceived the great idea of 
uniting all the Greeks under the government of one 
mighty state. That was what the purer Greeks could 
not understand. With them the highest idea of gov- 
ernment was that which gave autonomy to each 
important city. In their most quarrelsome days the 
Athenians had never thought of reducing the Spartans 
and the Korinthians and the Argives and the Thebans 
to autocratic subjection. Nor had even the rude- 
minded Spartans ever seriously concocted such a plan 
against the other Greeks. Philip's ambition therefore 
brought into Hellenism an idea that hitherto had been 
almost unknown. 

The most determined enemies of the Makedonians 
were the men of Athens. They, inspired by the elo- 
quence of Demosthenes, worked hard not to lose their 
autonomous freedom. But the danger was greater 
than they had foreseen. On the fateful field of Chsero- 
neia, they were defeated along with their Theban 
allies ; and the purer Greek principle of regarding each 
city as a state had seen its last day. It is true, indeed, 
that by the policy of Philip and of his son Alexander 
the local government of Athens as well as of every 
other populous Hellenic city was allowed to remain 
almost intact. But still from that time on, from the 
days of the Makedonic conquest, Athens was merely 



"MOTHER OF ARTS" 15 

a city in an empire. Her spirit was broken. She was 
no longer high master of herself and her fortunes. 

But what is remarkable, the fall of Athens as an 
autonomous state marks the extension of her human- 
izing influence to a wider world. Alexander was not 
content with establishing himself emperor of such 
countries exclusively as were inhabited by the Greeks. 
He desired to become military master of the entire 
world. But most of all he desired as a Greek, to 
humble the traditional enemies of Hellenism, the Per- 
sians. He invaded their kingdom. He became lord 
of all the countries of Asia Minor and of Asia to far 
beyond the Euphrates. Syria and Egypt and North 
Africa also acknowledged him. After his death this 
limitless Makedonian conquest was divided into a num- 
ber of kingdoms, under the sway of Makedonian 
princes. Greek civilization was everywhere dissemi- 
nated. The world became Hellenic. That was the 
great beginning of the propagating of an undying 
culture among non-Hellenic nations. But the peculiar 
type of Hellenism which was diffused was that which 
had grown to ripeness at Athens. Athenian letters and 
arts and sciences and rhetoric were taught in every city 
from Babylon to Dyrrachion and from the regions 
around the Danube to the confines of Abyssinia. 
Athens, the city which no longer possessed her cher- 
ished independence, had conquered the minds and souls 
of the most important races of mankind. 

Alexander bore a deep love toward Athens. It was 
a special delight of his to announce to the proud men 
of that city the successive tidings of his numerous 
victories. But after he had made his conquests and 



16 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

began to plan the formation of a mighty state, he 
could not for a single moment seriously think of mak- 
ing Athens the capital of his empire. Nature has not 
given to Athens a site proper for a purpose so banal. 
This is a truth which the men who today direct the 
fate of regenerated Hellas have not thought of, or at 
least have not appreciated. So long as Athens continues 
to be the seat of government for the present kingdom 
of Greece, especially with the centralizing methods in 
vogue there, it will be impossible for the Greeks of 
today to realize their just hopes of seeing their country 
extend itself as, by tradition, it has a right to do. 
Peoples who live north of Olympos and the Ambrakiot 
Gulf might gladly desire to be "Greeks" and put them- 
selves under Greek sway. But they cannot logically be 
drawn to enthusiastically desire to become subjects of a 
city situated at one of the extreme limits of the Balkan 
Peninsula. If the Greeks of today were more wise in 
the wisdom of this world, the capital of this kingdom 
would now be north of the Othrys Mountains, at least. 
But the modern Greeks, like their ancestors, are not an 
empire-making people. 

As a result of Alexander's conquests, other centers 
of academic as well as political Hellenism were estab- 
lished. Athens was too far away from many of the 
most populous countries of the empire, and could not 
directly answer all the needs of education and cul- 
ture. Accordingly, new musal foundations were estab- 
lished which rivaled the source from which they drew 
their inspiration. Alexandreia and Pergamos became 
as learned as Athens. Later, when all the countries 
inhabited by Greeks had been conquered by the cosmo- 



"MOTHER OF ARTS" 17 

politan soldiers of Rome, then a new center was added 
— the imperial city on the banks of the Tiber. In one 
sense Rome never became so thoroughly Hellenic as 
did Alexandreia and Pergamos, but in another sense 
she even surpassed these earlier rivals. The Latinism 
of the Roman republic wedded itself to the Hellenism 
of the Alexandreian period, and thus was generated 
the Romanism of the imperial times, which prevailed 
from Augustus, and yet earlier, down to Constantine 
and his successors. 

Athens, however, still continued to attract scholars. 
Not only from the countries of Asia Minor and Egypt 
but even from Italy itself numerous were the young 
men who went to the schools of the Athenians to finish 
their preparation for the turbulent and strenuous life 
of the Roman empire. The victorious Sulla, although 
he plundered and pillaged and murdered in other parts 
of Greece, ostentatiously spared the citizens of Athens 
after they had angered and worried him by stubbornly 
resisting his besieging army. He refrained from his 
usual cruelties "out of respect for the illustrious past" 
of that city. Csesar and Octavius, as well as Horace 
and the poets and orators, looked to Greece and Athens 
for models and instructors. 

But the fated days came, and Athens, save by her 
memories, ceased to attract the world. Under Roman 
sway she gradually dwindled in importance. She 
finally came to be nothing but a noted provincial city 
in a boundless empire. From the fourth century after 
Christ the Roman empire exhibited a tendency to cleave 
itself into two parts. Under Diocletian this division 
actually took place. The empire was to have two sec- 



18 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

tions, and two emperors. But in the course of time 
only one of the sections survived. It was the eastern 
half that was destined to be the most tenacious of life, 
because it continued to be the more thoroughly 
Roman. This eastern half, after the destruction of the 
western section by Odovakar's barbarians, became an 
independent Roman empire. It was Greek, or at least 
Hellenistic, in everything save name and government. 
This was the famous kingdom of Byzantion. Under 
Byzantiac rule, the seat of government was in Con- 
stantine's city on the Bosporos. Athens continued to 
be merely a provincial town. It was rarely heard of, 
but yet it was not dead. Its schools still flourished. 
The chairs of philosophy and rhetoric were still occu- 
pied by eminent men. Plotinos and Proklos and a host 
of others added glory to the wonderful light of this 
setting sun. Saints of the church went thither to learn 
the wisdom that ever since Sokrates' days had not 
ceased to be heard in the agora, and in the groves of 
Akadem, and along the banks of the Ilisos. But its 
very vitality occasioned its final fall. Proklos was not 
able to give protection to the goddess of the Parthe- 
non who sought an asylum in his hut. The haughty 
teachers in the city on the Bosporos could not brook 
the fact that so many scholars sought the quiet shores 
of Attika. The schools of Constantinople envied the 
hoary establishments of Athena's beloved abode. 
Finally there reigned an emperor who issued a decree 
that the philosophers' schools of Attika should cease 
to exist. The heart-broken professors of the tra- 
ditional teachings of Platon and Aristotle wandered 
off and disappeared among the cities of Asia. Athens 



"MOTHER OF ARTS" 19 

had finished her ancient work. This was in the 
year 529. 

After that time the city passed through many 
ordeals. It grew smaller. In the thirteenth century it 
became a Frankish stronghold, and was governed by 
the feudal laws of western Europe. Then came the 
Turks, and Mahomet added Athens to his dominions. 

But when the Greeks after a frightful struggle 
regained their independence in the last century, they 
quickly resolved to place their new capital at Athens. 
This was an honor which, in all her long and varied 
history, had never before fallen to the lot of Athens, 
to be the capital of a state. From a political point of 
view this was a serious mistake. But yet it was an 
honor to the historic city, even though she never be 
destined to rule over a wide extent of territory. 

The fame of Athens is independent of its future 
success as a capital. Her fame is in the fact that she 
has been a light and teacher to the world. Her doc- 
trines in their influence on mankind are inferior only 
to those of the Christians. Athens will never cease to 
stand a beacon light for progress, a perpetual guide 
for us in the evolution and perfecting of that civiliza- 
tion which we have inherited from her. 



THE AKR0P0LI5 OF ATHENS 

Ages of adverse fortune have dealt mercilessly with 
the Akropolis of Athens, but have not dimmed the 
splendor of its fame. This venerable rock, which was 
the pride of the Greeks in the ancient days of Perikles. 
is yet a Mecca to those who worship art and civiliza- 
tion. One may indeed be so forgetful of history as 
to have no sympathy for the modern descendants of 
the classic Hellenes, but never can the sage or the 
civilize? cease to love the Akropolis. 

The first light of history that illumines the origins 
of social life in Attika falls upon the Akropolis. Here 
it was that the mythic king Kekrops built a new 
seat of government,, a new city, which was called 
''"Kekropia." Whether he was a foreigner or a native 
of Attika is not to be learned. Ordinary history begins 
only after the invention of the art of keeping written 
records. And this invention came long after Kekrops. 
Story and myth, however, have kept enough about him 
to assure us that he belongs to the class of men who 
do much to ameliorate the condition of mankind. In 
fact, since he stands at the beginning of Athenian 
history, he may be regarded as one of the pioneers of 
our present type of civilization. His city, however, 
did not continue to be called after him. Myths narrate 
that the honor of being the tutelar}* deity of Athens 
was a matter of serious contention between the god of 
the sea. Poseidon, and the deity of wisdom and 
progress, Athena; and Athena, in order to predict that 

2C 



THE AKROPOLIS OF ATHENS 21 

she would be a useful patroness to the new city, caused 
an olive tree to sprout up miraculously on the top of 
the Akropolis. The umpires, who were the other 
Olympian gods, judging that the cultivation of the 
olive was commendable in Attika, awarded to Athena 
the tutelage of the new town. And thus it came to 
pass that, in honor of its guardian deity, the city was, 
in historical times, called not Kekropia, but Athens. 

Of the town of Athens, the citadel or Akropolis, 
which was the original settlement, always remained the 
most important and most holy part. The exact site 
where the mythic contest was thought to have taken 
place beween the two gods was, perhaps, one of the 
most sacred spots which the religion of the Athenians 
knew. The olive tree which Athena was credited with 
having so miraculously planted, was piously cared for 
throughout all the ages. It never, however, grew 
into the large gnarled and beautiful proportions of the 
magnificent trees that one sees in the groves north of 
Athens, near the locality of the mystic gardens of 
Platon. It was a stunted little shrub, as we are sorry 
to learn from Hesychios. But nevertheless it con- 
tained the miraculous innate vigor of a deity's handi- 
work. For not only were all the olive trees of Attika 
propagated from it, but, moreover, when it was burned 
in the conflagration which laid the Akropolis waste in 
480 before Christ it again grew so fast that in the first 
night after the fire it had sprouted two ells high. The 
sacristans did not keep a record of its growth during 
the following nights ; so we do not know how long 
this wonder continued in activity. The site near where 
the divine contest had occurred, and where the olive 



22 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

tree grew, was from primitive historic times decorated 
with altars and other signs of the sacredness of the 
place. But in the middle of the fifth century before 
Christ these old landmarks gave way to a new magnifi- 
cent temple, whose ruins still stand, and are known as 
the Ereehtheion. Since several gods had been wor- 
shiped on this site, it was necessary to provide for all 
of them in the new building, and to make the temple 
a multiplex one, so that each of these gods might have 
a nook therein, and a shrine. Accordingly, the Erech- 
theion was constructed on an intricate plan, and has 
been always a puzzle to the archaeological investigator. 
He has not yet finally determined upon what deities 
were worshiped in the several apartments of this 
curious temple, and where each one had his shrine. 
As an artistic architectural composition, however, it is 
a masterpiece, not only in its simple Ionic beauty of 
design, but in the delicacy and accuracy with which the 
various details have been chiseled out. Ionic archi- 
tecture has produced nothing finer than the north door 
of this temple. And a small portico on the south side 
is remarkable from the fact that the columns which 
support the architrave have been carved into the shape 
of comely but muscular maidens called "karyatids." 
They are well preserved, considering that they have 
been standing here in rain and sunshine for more than 
twenty-four hundred years. One of them was carried 
off to England in 1803 by the much-abused Lord Elgin, 
and now stands in the British Museum. Her original 
place is occupied among her sister karyatids by a 
facsimile in plaster. 

This fire which burned Athena's olive tree and 



THE AKROPOLIS OF ATHENS 23 

destroyed so many monuments on the Akropolis has 
indirectly rendered a service to those who study the 
history of art. For after the Persian soldiers of 
Xerxes, who had taken possession of Athens and given 
the Akropolis to the flames, had fled in disorder back 
to Asia, the Athenians, who were thankful and proud 
for their two decisive victories at Salamis and Plataea, 
immediately set about rebuilding the burned and black- 
ened shrines. To make a beginning, they collected all 
the statues that had been injured by the fire, or by the 
sacrilegious hands of the Asiatic soldiery, and threw 
them into the hollow places on the top of the citadel, 
and buried them with a deep covering of soil, in order 
thus to make the top of the hill more level. These 
numerous examples of "pre-Persian" statuary were 
exhumed, and fortunately discovered to be yet in a 
satisfactory state of preservation when in 1887 the 
entire top of the Akropolis was excavated. And as 
we know when these pieces of sculpture were buried, 
we have a datum which assists us in determining the 
art-epoch to which they belong ; for the year 480 before 
Christ must be more recent than the statuary in ques- 
tion. These finds are now kept in a museum on the 
top of the Akropolis, built expressly for such treasures 
as have come to light within the walls of the citadel. 

The Akropolis is an isolated mass of natural rock 
standing five hundred and twelve feet above the level 
of the sea, which is only about three miles distant, and 
separated from it by a level portion of the Attic plain. 
The top of the rock is a small plateau, oval in shape, 
about three hundred and thirty yards long and one 
hundred and fifty wide. It rises about two hundred 



24 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

feet above the average level of the modern city of 
Athens, which lies round its base. The top of the hill 
has ever since prehistoric ages been surrounded by a 
wall, which, until the invention of gunpowder, made 
the Akropolis an important and almost impregnable 
stronghold. This wall has been repaired, or rebuilt, 
over and over again, in order to remove the damages 
done by sieges and by time. As it now stands, it con- 
tains portions built at least twenty-five hundred years 
ago, and other portions built as late as during the last 
century. Fragments of old pre-Hellenic or Pelasgic 
wall can be seen; sections of the hasty wall stealthily 
built by Themistokles in spite of the jealous protest of 
Sparta, shortly after the departure of the Persians in 
479 before Christ; additions made by the Frankish 
dukes of Athens, in the thirteenth century of our era; 
later repairs by Greeks and Moslems and Europeans, 
all can be distinctly recognized. 

The surface of the top of the citadel was in ancient 
times covered with votive offerings, and commemora- 
tive inscriptions, and altars to the numerous deities, 
and statues, and temples, in every available space. It 
was not only a precinct of holy shrines, but also a 
museum of art, and a place where the most precious 
archives of state and of religious and public life were 
kept, engraved on slabs of marble. 

Near the entrance to the Akropolis, to the right of 
the steps that lead up to the Propylsea, is one of the 
most beautiful gems of Ionic architecture in existence. 
It is a small temple dedicated to Wingless Victory, or 
rather, to Athena designated as such. The temple is 
only about twenty feet high, and proportionately small 



THE AKROPOLIS OF ATHENS 2$ 

in length and breadth. But its diminutiveness seems 
really to add to its beauty. From the bastion that sup- 
ports it the view over the surrounding land and sea is 
exceptionally glorious. It was from this point that 
Byron looked out over Saron's gulf toward Parnasos 
and the Peloponnesos when he was inspired to write 
the opening verses of the third canto of The Corsair. 

In general the quantity of statuary and inscriptions 
and other monuments preserved to us from classic 
times is really remarkable. True it is that the portion 
preserved is only a small part of the original quantity ; 
and, what is more deplorable, it is not always the great 
masterpieces that have escaped destruction. Here, on 
the Akropolis, one can see the bases of famous statues 
mentioned by the ancient writers, but the statues them- 
selves are gone. Those that had been covered up in 
the earth or in debris have escaped. From the Propy- 
lsea eastward along the top of the citadel there are still 
traces of the route over which the sacrificial processions 
and all visitors passed on their way to the highest point 
and middle of the Akropolis, where stood the Parthe- 
non. Either side of this road was lined with multitudes 
of statues and other votive offerings and commemora- 
tive monuments. Their places can yet be recognized 
by the chiseled surfaces in the natural rock, where they 
stood. Pavsanias, who visited the Akropolis in the 
second century of our era, describes many of these 
statues. With the help of his book we can relocate them 
and mourn their loss. Many of the inscriptions have 
been found. Some of these refer to the building of 
the Erechtheion, the Parthenon, and the Propylaea, 
and give reliable information about the way in which 



26 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

contracts were made for the carving of various por- 
tions of the ornaments : : these structures, and the 
amounts of money paid to each man for his work. 

Conformably to the nature of the old Greek religion, 
which was polytheistic, a large number of deities 
enjoyed the worship of the pious. Each locality,, how- 
ever, had certain local deities that were preferred, and 
received a more prominent worship. This variety of 
deities often originated in the fact that the inhabitants 
were a conglomeration of different tribes, and each 
tribe had contributed to the chorus of gods by intro- 
ducing such deities as were peculiar to the tribe before 
it lost its identity- in the amalgamation. On the Akropo- 
lis, in oldest times, the deities worshiped were chiefly 
Zevs and Earth and Athena. One can still read an 
inscription cut upon the rock of the Akropolis just 
north of the Parthenon, which reads "Sacred to Gaea 
the Giver of Fruits." and indicates the place where 
stood an altar to the goddess Earth. To these primi- 
tive deities were added imported ones later. Apollon 
and Poseidon were probably brought here by the immi- 
grant Ionians. Of the three prominent original deities, 
Athena gradually became supreme on the Akropolis. 
To her were several shrines sacred. But her chief 
shrine, from the point of view of art, was the Parthe- 
non, where she was venerated under the special appel- 
lation of "the virgin goddess." The temple is so 
perfect and so grand that it alone would have made 
the Akropolis famous. It is an immense structure, in 
the Doric style of architecture, built to serve both as 
a shrine sacred to Athena and as a treasure-house 
wherein could be kept valuable utensils and sacred 



THE AKROPOLIS OF ATHENS 27 

articles and money belonging to the goddess and to 
Athens. 

From inscriptions which have been preserved on 
the Akropolis, and from other sources of information, 
we conclude that the Parthenon was begun 447 years 
before Christ, when Athens was in its highest glory 
and prosperity, and when Perikles autocratically 
governed the state and its affairs. In less than ten 
years it was completed sufficiently to receive the statue 
of gold and ivory which Pheidias had created for it. 
We learn that in 438 before Christ the Athenian 
people came for the first time in festal pomp to place 
the new veil upon this new masterwork. After Athens 
became a Christian city, the Parthenon was converted 
into a church. Additional doors were cut through the 
walls, and at the eastern end a large semicircular apse 
was built, so that the altar might be located therein. 
As a Christian church, the Parthenon, by a certain 
unpremeditated fitness, was consecrated first to "Divine 
Wisdom," and later to the Virgin Mother of God. 
Thus the noble virgin goddess of Hellenic idolatry 
became the forerunner of the great Virgin of the 
Christians. As a Christian church, it was selected to 
be the cathedral of the city, and the bishops of Athens 
took up their residence near it on the Akropolis, per- 
haps in the Propylsea. A valuable list of the names 
of these bishops has been preserved to us by the fact 
that it was customary in the tenth and eleventh cen- 
turies to record their death in graffiti inscriptions on 
the columns of the Parthenon. These records are still 
legible to the practiced eye of the epigraphist. 

But the Akropolis in the Middle Ages was not 



28 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

merely a residence for dignitaries of church and gov- 
ernment, and the site of the holiest temples of the city. 
It also served as a stronghold and as barracks for the 
soldiers, for it had reverted to its ancient condition of 
fortress. This was unfortunate for the works of art. 
In the year 1687, the Turks, who then were masters 
of most of Greece, occupied Athens, and had a garri- 
son on the Akropolis. An invading army of Vene- 
tians, under the celebrated Francesco Morosini, 
marched into Attika, and laid siege to the citadel. 
From a deserter, the Venetian engineers learned that 
the Turks had stored their powder in the Parthenon. 
Accordingly an attempt was made to throw a shell into 
it in order thus to destroy the enemy's supply of 
ammunition. Unfortunately the German artillery- 
man, who undertook to execute these orders, succeeded 
finally, and a shell, which entered through the roof, 
blew up the store of powder, and converted the Parthe- 
non, the pride of Athens, into the magnificent ruin it 
now is. After the deed was done, the noble old Vene- 
tian, Morosini, wept over the devastation which he 
had felt forced to create. It is more sad to recall this 
destruction of the Parthenon from the fact that the 
mischief was all in vain, since Morosini did not suc- 
ceed in liberating the Athenians except for a few 
months. In the following year his army had to evacu- 
ate the Akropolis and Athens, and the inhabitants 
again fell under Turkish control. 

Long before this untoward event, the Parthenon 
had undergone two transformations, in addition to the 
one already mentioned, of its conversion into a Chris- 
tian church. For in the year 1204, Athens became a 



THE AKROPOLIS OF ATHENS 29 

portion of the provinces of the crusaders who had 
taken possession of the Byzantine empire, and these 
crusaders established the Latin rite in Athens, and 
converted the Parthenon into a Catholic cathedral, 
with a Latin archbishop and Latin canons. While 
under this western control, the government of Athens 
often changed hands, and many were the standards that 
successively floated from the turrets of the Akropo- 
lis, French and Spanish and Italians taking their 
turn in the ownership of the city. But in the year 
1456, the Florentine duke of Athens surrendered the 
city to Mahomet II, and soon afterward the Parthe- 
non was converted into a Moslem mosque. 

In the war for independence which began in 1821, 
in which the Greeks succeeded in throwing off the yoke 
of Turkish dominion, the Akropolis was doomed to 
suffer again. It is for these successive reasons that all 
the buildings, and notably the Parthenon, are no longer 
in a state of good preservation, but rather in one of 
magnificent ruin. Most strangers who visit Athens 
and remain for any length of time, take pains to visit 
the Akropolis by moonlight. Then, in the dimmer and 
kindlier light, the wreck of time seems to make a 
duller impression on the senses, and only the inde- 
scribably soothing influence of the larger details of 
the monuments in their perfection is felt. Especially 
fortunate is the stranger who chances to visit the 
Akropolis when illuminated by the soft but profuse 
light of the moon of August, for of all the year, in 
August is the moon of Attika most bright. 

When Alexander the Great, who, though a native 
of Makedonia, justly claimed to be a Greek by blood, 



30 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

and therefore looked to Athens as to the highest pride 
of his nation, gained his first effective battle in Asia 
on the banks of the Granikos, he remembered the 
tutelary deity of the Akropolis, and sent thirty suits 
of armor to be dedicated to her as votive offerings. 
From this booty, twenty-six shields were selected by 
the Athenians and hung up on the architrave of the 
Parthenon. The shields have long since disappeared. 
In the year 1854, the Greeks, out of gratitude for 
generous assistance rendered by America in their 
sufferings during their war for independence, selected 
a block of Pentelic marble from the ruins of the Par- 
thenon, and after placing on it a suitable inscription 
in classic Greek, written by Perikles Argyropoulos, 
then a member of King Otho's cabinet, sent it to the 
United States to be built into the Washington Monu- 
ment. In consigning the stone to the care of Mr. King, 
the American consul at Athens, Mr. Argyropoulos 
said : 

Greece has never forgotten the noble sympathy manifested 
toward her by the American nation at the time of her revolu- 
tion. Full of gratitude and of friendship, she has always 
watched with the deepest interest the wonderful progress which 
has been in every respect achieved by a people to which she 
feels attached by the most indissoluble ties. 

And in his reply to Argyropoulos, the secretary of 

state at Washington, Mr. Marcy, wrote : 

The announcement of this noble present, accompanied as it 
is by tones of friendship so emphatic and so acceptable, cannot 
fail to be highly appreciated by the President and people of the 
United States. 

In antiquity the Parthenon was not indeed the most 
holy shrine on the Akropolis; in point of sanctity it 



THE AKROPOLIS OF ATHENS 31 

yielded to other sacred precincts near the Erechtheion. 
But as a work of art, and as the pride of the city, it 
ranked first. Being sacred to the virgin Athena, it 
contained a statue of this goddess. And like the 
temple, the statue was the most celebrated one in 
Athens, although not the most revered. It was the 
handiwork of the master sculptor Pheidias himself, 
and was one of his most famous creations. It was of 
colossal size, being more than forty-five feet high. It 
was made entirely of gold and ivory, the drapery being 
of gold, and the face, hands, and feet of ivory. To 
guard against robbery, the gold was put on in such a 
way as to be removable, and thus it could be weighed 
whenever such action might be deemed necessary, so 
as to discover any loss by stealing. 

What the final fate of the statue was, we do not 
know. It seems to have remained safe in the Parthe- 
non for about nine hundred years. The last mention of 
it as still being in its original position is made in con- 
nection with the Platonic philosopher Proklos. Proklos 
came to Athens from his native town of Constantinople 
in about the year 430 after Christ, and took up his 
residence near the south side of the Akropolis, below 
the Parthenon. Athens had already become Christian, 
but Proklos continued to be an enthusiastic worshiper 
of the vanishing cults. The Parthenon was still sacred 
to its ancient deity, and the gold-ivory statue still 
remained unmolested. But Zosimos the historian nar- 
rates that Proklos had a vision in which he dreamed 
that Athena, the "Lady of Athens," appeared to him 
and informed him that she was about to abandon the 
Akropolis and the Parthenon, and requested him, as 



3 2 



HELLADIAN VISTAS 



one of her last worshipers, to prepare his house to 
receive her. The manner in which the dream is nar- 
rated supposes that the statue was yet in the Parthenon 
when Proklos sojourned in Athens. It may afterward 
have been brought to Constantinople, as a later Byzan- 
tine writer states. One thing at least is certain, that 
it has surely not been preserved anywhere. An object 
of so much value in bare gold could not survive the 
numerous plunderings which the old civilized world 
was subjected to. It is only a wonder that so valuable 
a work survived so long. 

In addition to the old classic edifices on the Akropo- 
lis there was built during the successive ages a 
number of Byzantine, Frankish, and Turkish struc- 
tures, some of them historically interesting, and most 
of them picturesque. But the severe determination to 
rid the Akropolis of all that does not belong to classi- 
cal antiquity has caused the archaeologists to tear down 
all these later buildings. Whether this action is justi- 
fiable or not is not a decided question; but it satisfies 
the demands of the stricter classicists. At any rate, the 
Akropolis, crowned with its ancient walls, flanked with 
the ruins of the theater of Dionysos and the music hall 
of Herod, as well as by sacred grots and shrines, and 
by the hill of Ares where the apostle Paul first spoke 
to the Athenians, with the beautiful city of new 
Athens stretching out to north and east of it, and with 
the noble ruins of the grand Parthenon standing on its 
very highest point, is a sight that no man ever for- 
gets, and everyone desires to see again. 



HIGHER EDUCATION IN GREECE OF TODAY 

The regenerated people of Greece have enjoyed less 
than eighty years of independent existence. In 1830, 
the Great Powers of Europe formally agreed to allow a 
small but considerable portion of the Hellenes to recon- 
struct themselves into a new state. Ever since that 
year Greece has been slowly and laboriously, but at the 
same time steadily and continuously, coming up toward 
the degree of culture which is required for every nation 
that can claim to be under the full spell of "European" 
civilization. Whoever wishes to know what the modern 
Greeks have done for education must not only acquaint 
himself with the present condition of learning in 
Greece, but must also note the abject and degraded 
condition of the country at the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century, as Byron, the Philhellene, described 
it, and must observe the progress made since that time. 
The present state of culture in Greece is to be 
measured, not by its present excellence and defects, 
but by its height above the level of culture which pre- 
vailed there during the last period of Turkish rule. 

As soon as the shackles of their long slavery were 
broken, the inhabitants of Greece began to reassert 
their ancient love for learning. Even while the war 
was still in its highest fury, the bloody face of Bellona 
did not effectively frighten the muses into the mute- 
ness of despair. Such of the priests and old men as 
were unable to bear arms in the holy struggle, but who 
knew something of letters and books, used to assemble 

33 



34 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the children of the absent warriors into some hut 
or beneath some tree, and by most primitive methods 
endeavor to teach them to read, using as textbooks the 
Psalms of David, or the Lives of the Saints, or some 
other liturgical book of the eastern church. Even the 
venerable Parthenon, which originally was built in 
honor of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and which in 
the early ages of Christianity was dedicated to the 
Holy Wisdom of God, and in later years rededicated to 
the Blessed Virgin, received new glory in the year 
1824 by affording its noble shelter to a group of little 
girls who gathered there every day to learn the alpha- 
bet from a white-haired man who knew how to read. 

Only seven years of inchoate and turbulent freedom 
had elapsed when the first king of Greece, Otho of 
Bavaria, saw that the time had already come for the 
founding of a school of higher education. In the 
spring of 1837 he issued a royal decree declaring the 
establishment of a Panepistemion or university, and 
naming the first rector and deans and professors. The 
king and his advisers looked to Germany for light and 
guidance. Accordingly, the Panepistemion of Athens 
has been constituted conformably to German notions 
about universities. There are four chief schools and 
four faculties, of theology, law, medicine, and phi- 
losophy. Each faculty, under the presidency of the 
dean, constitutes an independent teaching body. The 
common weal of the university is directed by the rector, 
who is guided by the senate. Rectors, senators, and 
deans are elected from among the professors. 

In this same year of 1837, the new university began 
to fulfil its mission. On the fifteenth of May the 



HIGHER EDUCATION IN GREECE 35 

solemn rites of inauguration took place. The enthu- 
siastic king was present with all the members of his 
cabinet. The bishop of Attika chanted the appropriate 
prayers and blessed the momentous undertaking. 
Proud tears of hopeful joy escaped from Otho's eyes. 
The rector and each of the four deans addressed appro- 
priate words to the assembled multitudes. The first 
regular lecture took place in the following week. It 
was given by Professor Ludwig Ross. He spoke about 
the Acharnians of Aristophanes. 

When the university was founded there existed in 
Athens no suitable building in which it could be housed. 
A structure which had originally been erected as a pri- 
vate dwelling, but which had been turned into a gym- 
nasion or high school, was selected as the most 
available and commodious home for the reassembling 
of the muses' votaries. Within the narrow walls of this 
building, "the House of Kleanthes," as it was called, 
professors and students faithfully did their work until 
November of 1841, when one wing of the present 
magnificent university buildings was completed, and 
the lectures began to be given in it. 

The number of students at the Panepistemion stead- 
ily increased from fifty-two, who enrolled their names 
in 1837, up to three thousand eight hundred and 
seventy-eight, who matriculated in the scholastic year 
of 1891-92. This last number is not very large in view 
of the fact that the students came not only from free 
Greece, but from all parts of the East, where people 
of Greek religion and traditions still dwell. Since 
1892, however, the 'number of students has decreased 
slightly, owing chiefly to the political disturbances and 



36 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

poverty that have been harassing this part of the world. 
For a population of about seven millions of Greeks 
scattered throughout these countries of the Mediter- 
ranean, four thousand students would not be a dispro- 
portionately large number. 

The language of students and professors in the 
Panepistemion is always exclusively Greek. This fact 
might profitably be borne in mind by all those histo- 
rians and philologians and other scholars throughout 
the world who have assumed the heavy task of being 
willing to be regarded as authorities in matters relat- 
ing to the language of Greece. Of course versatility 
in a language does not constitute scientific scholarship. 
Few of the prominent citizens of Athens in the age of 
Perikles were scientific scholars, although they under- 
stood Greek wonderfully well. Nevertheless, the pro- 
fessional Hellenist, who, along with his scientific 
training and habits, possesses as an additional accom- 
plishment such familiarity with the actual use of the 
Greek language as is acquired by two or three years of 
complementary study at Athens, will find his labor 
sweetened, and the intrinsic difficulties of his science 
greatly lessened. This truth would be more easily 
understood abroad if the Greeks themselves were first 
thoroughly to understand it, and were to aim at making 
their Panepistemion unique among the universities of 
the world as a seat of such sciences as are thoroughly 
Hellenic and philological. Every university, while re- 
fusing its fostering care to no science whatsoever, may 
nevertheless have exceptional love and solicitude for 
some special branch of learning, yielding to the dictates 
of circumstances. 



HIGHER EDUCATION IN GREECE 37 

Most of the foreigners who come to Athens for the 
sake of study devote their time to some branch of 
archaeological inquiry. And costly institutions are 
maintained here by various foreign governments or by 
antiquarian societies, for the benefit and assistance of 
such as desire to pursue archaeological investigations 
on the soil of Greece. Among these foreign institu- 
tions is the American School of Classical Studies, sup- 
ported by the Archaeological Institute of America, and 
by the more prominent universities of America. At 
this school, every scholar from the United States may 
be sure of a cordial welcome. Like the other foreign 
scientific institutes at Athens, the American school is 
occupied chiefly with archaeological work. But at the 
same time instruction and guidance is given to philo- 
logians by a professor annually sent out from America. 

It would not be an easy task to try to name the most 
noted professors and assistant professors in the facul- 
ties of the Panepistemion. Many of them have attracted 
reverent attention in Europe. In the philological 
branches, which concern us most at present because of 
their close connection with trains of thought that are 
more peculiarly Greek, it may not be out of place to 
mention, as an eminent authority on Attic forms of the 
Greek language, the late Konstantinos Kontos, who 
for more than thirty years was busy as a conscientious 
teacher and writer, and who has added entire stores of 
newly discovered facts to the already known gram- 
matical, syntactical, and lexicological lore of Greek 
philology. His native home was Amphissa, near the 
western slopes of Parnasos and but a few miles dis- 
tant from Apollon's ancient shrine at Delphi. 



38 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

A living scholar of wide fame is Georgios Chatzi- 
dakis, who came to the Panepistemion from the island 
of Krete. He has consecrated his energies to the 
investigation of the history of the Greek language 
from its first formation down to the present time. His 
special study is glossology, or comparative grammar, 
and he examines the linguistic remains of the Greek 
language from the point of view of a modern glossolo- 
gist. Like most men who are good, he adds patriotism 
to his other virtues, and when a few years ago Krete 
was in trouble with Turkey, he went down to his native 
island to bear his share in the dangers of the struggle. 

Attached to the university, and intended for the use 
of the professors and students, are various laboratories 
and scientific collections. One of the most curious and 
interesting of these collections is a series of Greek 
skulls which have been found in graves of different 
epochs. Some of these skulls are very old. Others of 
them were found in the tumulus at Chseroneia and are 
from the bodies of the warriors who fell fighting the 
last battle for ancient Greek freedom against Philip of 
Makedon. Others are from the Middle Ages, or from 
modern times. The scientific value of this collection 
is very great. It will probably be of much use in prac- 
tically answering the difficult questions concerning the 
origin of the tribes which occupied Greece at the dawn 
of the historical period. It will also serve to show the 
true relationship between the Greeks of today and 
those of past centuries. 

Next in prominence to the Panepistemion, and equal 
in importance perhaps, is the Polytechnic Institute. 
The fine arts and the applied sciences are cultivated 



HIGHER EDUCATION IN GREECE 39 

here. In the school of applied science are taught 
chemistry, physics, mineralogy, geology, mechanology, 
mechanics, higher mathematics, architecture, and other 
kindred topics. In the school of fine arts, courses in 
drawing, painting, and sculpture are given. Broutos, 
several of whose works are in the United States, is 
professor of sculpture. Some of his creations are very 
beautiful. 

Since the church is such an essential part of Greek 
life, it is reasonable to expect that the Greeks would be 
solicitous for the proper and thorough education of 
their clergy. But the monetary resources which the 
church of Greece has at her disposal are not sufficient 
to meet the expenses of higher education for all priests. 
The only purely ecclesiastical institution of higher 
learning within the free kingdom is the "Rizareion 
School." This is a seminary where candidates for the 
priesthood may pursue courses of classical and philo- 
sophical and rubrical studies for four years, and then 
a course in the first elements of theology for one year. 
Those who desire to enter more deeply into the study 
of theology must go to the university. The school, 
both in matters of discipline and of general manage- 
ment, resembles the Catholic seminaries of Europe. It 
was founded and is sustained by a bequest of money 
and property left for this purpose by two natives of 
Epeiros, Georgios and Manthos Rizares. The semi- 
narists live in community life. They study in common 
halls, take their meals in a common dining-hall, and 
sleep in common dormitories. No student may go 
beyond the bounds of the institution without having 
personal permission to do so. All wear robes of the 



40 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

same pattern — a stiff, round, black cap with a flat 
top, a black loose cassock held neatly by a blue girdle, 
and a loose, long black coat with flowing sleeves, worn 
over the cassock. 

For more than fifteen years an important school, 
known as the Leonteion, has been in existence in 
Athens. It was founded by the late pope, Leo XIII, 
and has served as a collegiate school for the children of 
Catholic parents in Athens. Lately, however, Rome, 
in her unceasing solicitude for the Christians of the 
East, has determined to raise the status of the school, 
and to annex to it a general ecclesiastical seminary 
for the education of priests for all the Greek countries 
of the East. It has hitherto been the custom for the 
Catholics of Greece to educate the most and best of 
their priests in Europe, most commonly in the Propa- 
ganda at Rome. There existed indeed small seminaries 
at Syros and Naxos and Tenos, and elsewhere in 
Greece. But these schools usually had but one or two 
professors and eight or ten students. It is therefore 
quite clear that Rome is acting wisely in establishing 
one important school to take the place of these anti- 
quated makeshifts, and is also wise in selecting Athens 
as the site for this general school. 

This hasty sketch of the institutions of higher learn- 
ing in Athens is not put forward as a satisfactory 
picture of the intellectual life of the modern Greeks. 
The picture would be more complete if several other 
institutions received the honorable mention which they 
deserve. If it were my desire to give an exhaustive 
description of the condition of higher education in 
Greece, then no atoning reason could be adduced which 



HIGHER EDUCATION IN GREECE 41 

would excuse me for having omitted all reference to 
such institutions as the Conservatory of Music, the 
libraries, the laboratories one by one, the museums, 
the Arsakeion Academy for girls, the different literary 
and scientific societies, the astronomical observatory, 
the naval and military schools, and the gymnasia or 
colleges. 



AN ATHENIAN CEMETERY 

The fact that literature records the thought of a 
limited class of people, and in certain past ages of a 
very small class, has led the investigator to seek other 
sources of information concerning the opinions held 
by ancient peoples about the manifold conditions 
and vicissitudes of life. In architectural and artistic 
monuments he likewise finds an imperfect witness ; for 
these monuments, when they date from ages of slavery 
and inequality, have been erected by a limited class of 
the people — a class somewhat more extensive than the 
literary one, but yet only a small proportion of the 
whole community. But makers of monuments are 
much more conservative than are writers. And by 
observing the monuments we frequently find views and 
ideas expressed that are nearer to the ordinary man 
than are those found in the ancient books. 

Large cemeteries, rich in noble sepulchral monu- 
ments, have been discovered in other parts of the old 
Greek world, as in Asia Minor and in Sicily and at 
Mykenae. But the one of greatest interest for the 
present discussion is the Kerameikos cemetery at 
Athens, just outside of the ancient western gates of 
the city, on the road from the Peirseevs. Here the 
monuments are both numerous and beautiful; and those 
that still remain in their ancient site are supplemented 
by the numerous specimens that have been gathered 
into the great National Museum of Athens. The sur- 
vival of so much of this old Kerameikos cemetery in its 

42 



AN ATHENIAN CEMETERY 43 

pristine shape, is due to the fact that it had been deeply- 
buried and hidden by accumulated debris and earth. 
Indeed, the opinion has often been expressed that at 
some unknown time a good portion of it was intention- 
ally covered up by an artificial mound of earth. A 
French savant, Charles Lenormant, has thought that 
the Roman general, Sulla, who eighty-six years before 
Christ stormed the walls of Athens exactly at this 
point, must have caused the earth to be piled up here 
in order that from its top his soldiers might scale the 
city wall. There is however no proof to be found for 
this ingenuous but gratuitous assertion. 

In this Kerameikos cemetery the Athenians used to 
bury both private citizens and public men. The monu- 
ments erected by the state to mark the graves of the 
public men, especially of those who had lost their lives 
in celebrated battles in defense of their country, were 
costly and magnificent. Unfortunately these stood in a 
place not included within the area that had been safely 
covered by the mound of debris, and probably most of 
them have perished. There are preserved, however, a 
few private monuments erected to brave men who died 
in arms. One of these, now kept in the museum, is 
that of Aristonavtes, a hoplite soldier from the suburb 
called Halae, who is represented as in the act of char- 
ging against the foe. It is characteristic of all Greek 
sepulchral art that when the deceased is represented on 
the tombstone he is rarely portrayed in unpleasant or 
inglorious circumstances. In the entire great collec- 
tion in the museum of Athens there are only one or 
two monuments on which a person is shown as being 
in the painful moments of dying. Often family sur- 



44 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

roundings or other sacred or characteristic circum- 
stances of past life on this earth, are idealized and 
portrayed. The monuments, when visited by the 
friends of the departed, recall happy memories, sober 
and sweet recollections, rather than inconsolable sor- 
row. Many of these representations may correctly 
enough be called portraits, but the sculptor made no 
attempt accurately to individualize the features of the 
persons represented. Indeed, the ancient Greek artists 
never learned to individualize. 

When the form of the departed person is sculptured 
on the tombstone he is often represented in company 
with relations who have outlived him. He is usually 
placed in the position of honor, sitting down, while the 
others stand. The deceased is very often represented 
as holding the hand of one of the other persons por- 
trayed. This attitude shows the love which bound the 
members of the family together. It explicitly recalls 
neither the pain of departure nor the joy of expected 
reunion. Nevertheless there was a certain reference 
to the future, and to the continuance of this love of 
parent or wife or sister in the after-life. According 
to the conception then in vogue, the entire monument 
stood, not for the body, but for the soul, which was to 
live on in some way or other. 

Vague were the notions which the Athenians had 
about the soul, and vague were the conceptions which 
they formed as to its future life. That the soul was a 
kind of airy double of the corporeal man which con- 
tinued to live in a dreamlike existence after the body 
had died, that it was a kind of living shadow or 
umbra of the body, and that it was a spiritual existence 



AN ATHENIAN CEMETERY 45 

similar to what Christianity has conceived the soul to 
be, were successive views which prevailed at different 
times. But the last-named doctrine never became the 
property of the common people in olden days. It was 
confined to certain schools of philosophers and their 
disciples. The surviving part of man after death, the 
umbra, was honored by the monument placed over the 
grave, while the grave itself was destined for the body. 
After the burial of the body certain honors were paid 
to the monument as to the representative of the umbra. 
These honors consisted in certain rites performed at 
the grave or at the monument on the third and ninth 
and thirtieth days after the funeral, and subsequently 
at the monument on the anniversary of the death for 
an indefinite number of years. 

There have been found in graves of the Kerameikos 
a number of beautiful vases, called "lekythoi," made 
of white pipeclay, with illustrations on them in dark 
colors; and most of these illustrations are scenes con- 
nected with funerals and funereal rites, so that from 
these vases we learn much about what took place on 
such occasions. On many of them are depicted scenes 
in which the relations of the deceased are adorning 
the monument on these memorial days. On these occa- 
sions they often brought to the grave various small 
household objects that had been dear to the deceased 
while on earth, and left them near the tomb. This 
practice gave rise to a beautiful story, which, if not 
entirely true, is probably not wholly unfounded. In 
the winter a young girl had died in Korinth. Some 
time afterward her maid gathered together various 
trinkets and playthings which the girl had loved, and 



46 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

brought them to the girl's grave. There she placed 
them in a basket near the monument, and placed a large 
square tile upon the basket to prevent the wind from 
overturning it. It happened that under the basket was 
the root of an acanthus plant. When spring came the 
acanthus sprouted; but its shoots were not able to 
pierce the basket and accordingly they grew around it, 
having the basket in their midst. Such of the long 
leaves as grew up against the four protruding corners 
of the tile on the top of the basket curled round under 
these corners and formed pretty volutes. Kallimachos, 
the sculptor, walking that way one day, saw this, and 
immediately conceived the notion that the form of the 
basket with the plaque on top of it, and surrounded by 
the leaves and stalks of acanthus, would be a comely 
heading for columns in architecture. From this idea 
he formed the beautiful Korinthiac style of capital. 
Such, at least, is the story as the architect Vitruvius 
told it. 

Just as the notions of the Greeks about the soul 
really were very hazy, so also were those concerning 
its abiding-place after leaving the body, and the mode 
of its existence. The common opinion was that the 
country of the umbras, the gloomy world over which 
the unfriendly Plouton and his consort, the mysterious 
Persephone, swayed the scepter, was somewhere below 
the surface of the earth, and therefore they called 
it the "under world." The guide to this region was 
Hermes, the "soul-escorter," as he was called, who 
led the umbras down through the meadows of asphodel 
until they came to the river Acheron, where the ferry- 
man Charon stood ready to carry them over to Erebos, 



AN ATHENIAN CEMETERY 47 

' or the "dark country." It was in many parts of Greece 
customary to place a coin in the mouth of the corpse, 
so that the umbra might have the means of paying the 
ferryman, and thus avoid becoming forever a wanderer 
in the marshes on the murky shores of the Acheron. 
After crossing the river, the umbra came to the gates 
of Persephone's kingdom, where stood the triple- 
headed watchdog Kerberos, who never prevented any- 
one from going in, but never let anyone out. 

Although certain rites, developed and established 
by long custom, were performed at the tomb, it cannot 
be said that these rites were conducted with such 
mechanical and undeviating sameness on every occa- 
sion as to constitute an accepted and obligatory funereal 
ritual. Nor is it clear that any fixed formulas of 
prayer or even any impromptu supplications were said 
or recited on such occasions. Literature has not re- 
corded such prayers, and none are preserved in the 
inscriptions on the sepulchers or on the white funereal 
lekythoi. 

On the day of the funeral the friends brought and 
put into the grave various gifts for the deceased — 
vases filled with precious unguents and perfumes, terra- 
cotta figurines representing gods or mortals, lumps of 
baked clay in the form of loaves of bread, and some- 
times much more valuable articles. The clay gods may 
sometimes have been amulets; the figurines represent- 
ing human beings were simply mementos; and the 
terracotta loaves of bread were a ritualistic survival 
of the more ancient custom of placing real food in the 
grave or near it for the needs of the departed. In 
earlier tombs we find that it was customary to place in 



48 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the graves of heroes and wealthy chiefs costly articles 
of bronze and silver and gold. Such, for instance, 
were the rich treasures found by Schliemann in the 
tombs of the ancient kings of Argos at Mykense. 

Among the vases which archaeologists now find in 
the tombs of Attika, a frequent type is the lekythos 
already mentioned. Similar vases were placed at the 
grave on the various occasions on which the relatives 
visited the tomb after the funeral. Larger vases were 
sometimes set upright over the graves, to stay there 
till the permanent monument of stone could be pre- 
pared. This practice occasioned the idea of making 
marble gravestones in the graceful shape of these 
vases. Accordingly there stood in the Kerameikos 
cemetery a number of monuments shaped like a leky- 
thos, and others shaped like a still larger vase or water 
jar — the so-called "loutrophoros." The loutrophoros 
was a large earthenware jar, which, according to old 
Athenian marriage customs, was always needed in the 
preparations that immediately preceded the nuptial 
ceremonies. In this loutrophoros water was brought 
from some favorite fountain, and with this water the 
virgins bathed and prepared their toilet for the wed- 
ding. If, however, a young man or woman happened 
to die without being married, and without leaving a 
name and personality to posterity — a calamity which 
among the Greeks, just as among many other ancient 
peoples, was regarded as one of the greatest that could 
befall a mortal — then a loutrophoros vase which had 
been destined to hold water for a nuptial toilet was 
sorrowfully carried to the grave of the unmarried 
dead, and placed upright upon it as a monument. So 



AN ATHENIAN CEMETERY 49 

strong and so constant was this custom of marking 
the graves of unmarried young people with the loutro- 
phoros vase that often the marble monument later 
erected had a loutrophoros vase sculptured on it, or, 
in accordance with the artistic idea referred to, the 
monument was itself modeled into the shape of a 
loutrophoros. 

The Athenians were at one time lavish of ex- 
pense in their sepulchral monuments. Some of these 
memorials to the dead were very beautiful; but their 
beauty was always genuinely Greek, simple and chaste. 
The monument of Hegeso is an example. It is 
thought to be one of the best pieces of sepulchral 
sculpture ever made. But yet it is probable that if we 
possessed all the monuments of the Kerameikos we 
should have many another sculptured group equally 
excellent. Hegeso's monument was made at about the 
time when the Athenians began in their high pride of 
success the long and disastrous war against Sparta, 
which, after nearly thirty years' duration, ended in 
humiliation. It shows a style of art and technique that 
has become familiar to connoisseurs through the cele- 
brated Parthenon sculptures. Hegeso is represented 
as a seated lady; before her stands her maid, holding 
a toilet-box or a jewel-case; from this, Hegeso has 
taken a ring or a brooch, or some other precious ob- 
ject, which she holds in her hand and looks at. She 
is clothed in a fine Ionic chiton, her maid in a simpler 
dress. The whole representation is in the pure beauty 
of noblest Greek art. 

In consequence of the prodigal propensity to erect 
expensive works of art as tombs, the state finally de- 



50 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

cided to interfere, and a law was passed forbidding 
such sumptuous monuments. Nothing was allowed 
more costly than a simple column three ells high, or a 
flat slab, or a marble monument in the shape of a vase. 
No monument was permitted that could not be con- 
structed by ten men within three days. 

Along with the belief in some kind of immortality, 
the Greeks gradually formed clear and positive notions 
about rewards and punishments in the next world. 
This belief, at least in an undetermined way, was as 
old as Homer, and older. But in the early ages of the 
belief more stress was placed upon the fact that the 
wicked run the risk of being cruelly punished than 
that the good and virtuous have a respectable chance 
of being rewarded. For any indication of a belief that 
the after-life is one of joy and pleasure for such as had 
been virtuous on earth, one must pass on to a time at 
least two or three centuries later than the Homeric 
poems. 

It was in the mysterious rites performed at Elevsis 
in honor of the earth-goddess Demeter and her daugh- 
ter Persephone that a more elevating and worthy 
doctrine of future rewards for the good was clearly 
and positively promulgated. But a natural result of 
the teachings at Elevsis was that ritualistic sanctity 
was deemed absolutely necessary, while natural virtue 
and uprightness might be of no avail. According to 
this teaching it was necessary to be "initiated" in the 
mysteries or to be attached in some special way and by 
special rites to some deity, in order to insure bliss 
after death. This gave occasion to the cynic Diogenes 
to complain that the noble Epameinondas would have 



AN ATHENIAN CEMETERY 51 

to take a place among the neglected spirits because he 
had never been initiated while on earth, but that the 
thief Panaktion would have a very happy time because 
he had taken care to be initiated. 



THE CHURCH OF GREECE 

Many of the earliest and readiest to accept the 
first teachings of Christianity were from among the 
Greeks. In the New Testament, and especially in the 
Pauline epistles, Greek names are common for the 
primitive converts to the new belief; and names are 
often indicative of nationality. Most of these, how- 
ever, received the new light not in their patrial country, 
but as foreigners in Rome and Asia and Makedonia. 
But even the very core of Hellenism was reached by 
the gospel. Paul came into Greece. At Athens he 
preached the new religion, and, while he and his 
hearers could gaze upon the Doric and Ionic temples 
of the Akropolis, announced to the lolling Epicureans 
and ascetic Stoics that he was the messenger of a God 
whose abode was not in temples made by hands. How 
the gentle philosophers must have smiled .as they heard 
his words of depreciation, and looked proudly up at 
the great citadel and its glory. But nevertheless Paul 
gained followers for Christ even at Athens. Continu- 
ing his work in Greece, the apostle went to Korinth, 
the residence of the proconsul, the representative of 
the Roman empire, to which all Greece then belonged. 
At Korinth he established a community of believing 
converts, which for centuries remained the chief church 
in the province of Achaia, as Greece then was called. 

The Christianity of the first three centuries was ex- 
ceedingly fertile in literature. But nearly all of these 
writings have unaccountably perished. This vast loss 

52 



THE CHURCH OF GREECE 53 

is one of the saddest in all history. Perhaps it is on 
account of the destruction of early Christian literature 
that we know nothing certain about such men as 
Dionysios of Athens. Greece furnished a number of 
leading men to the primitive church. Misty traditions 
have preserved their names and occasionally some of 
their deeds. Anakletos and Hygeinos, two of the early 
popes, are said to have been Athenians. Aristeides, 
who, as far as we know, wrote the first Apology for 
Christianity, was a converted Athenian philosopher. 
This Apology he wrote and presented to Hadrian, 
hoping to obtain the emperor's favor for the Christians. 
Paganism was very tenacious of life. It was stead- 
fastly cherished and defended by the priests of the 
ancient cults, by the schools of Athens, and by those 
who had been initiated into the Elevsinian and other 
mystic rites. The final deathblow to opposition against 
Christianity was given by the Byzantine emperor Jus- 
tinian when in the year 529 he ordered the old schools 
of Athens to be closed forever, and put an end to the 
public teachings of the philosophers. During the 
previous centuries the church of Achaia made progress 
indeed, but yet could not prevail. At the time of 
Justinian the largest communities must have been at 
Patrse, where according to tradition the apostle St. 
Andrew had first established a church, and in Korinth, 
where the chief bishop of the church of Achaia resided. 
Athens was still in the hands of the successors of 
Platon and Aristotle and Chrysippos. Most of these 
teachers were pagans. Indeed in other parts of the 
Hellenic world, as for example at Alexandreia and 
Antioch, the schools of philosophy gradually became 



54 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

Christian. But this did not happen at Athens. The 
last teachers in these schools were just as far from 
Christianity as were the original founders. They 
were not very famous, however. And the last eminent 
heathen of Athenian antiquity may be said to have 
been the neo-Platonic philosopher, Proklos, who had 
died long before Justinian's edict was fulminated. 

Soon after the closing of the schools, Christianity 
spread without further opposition in all the towns of 
Greece. Only in the country and mountainous districts 
did the wild inhabitants still retain their preference for 
the ancient superstitions. The celebrated Maniats, 
who live on the slopes of the Parnon and Taygetos 
mountains in Lakonia, accepted Christianity only in 
the eighth century. 

In the time of Constant ine the Great, the Roman 
empire was reapportioned into new provinces. Accord- 
ing to this division, Achaia was assigned to Eastern 
Illyria. The seat of local government for Eastern 
Illyria was the city of Thessalonike. The church, 
which from that time on was recognized by the state, 
followed the same division. Accordingly the arch- 
bishop of Thessalonike was regarded as a kind of 
primate over the church of Achaia. 

In the general government of the great empire, the 
province of Illyria was regarded as belonging rather 
to the West than to the East. The church of Eastern 
Illyria likewise was accounted to Rome rather than to 
Constantinople. In this way the Christians of Greece 
were under the jurisdiction not of the patriarch of 
Constantinople, but of the pope of Rome. Not only 
thus in outward government, but also in dogmatic 



THE CHURCH OF GREECE 55 

sentiment was the Helladic church nearer to the popes 
than to the patriarchs. When the ikonoklasts of Con- 
stantinople made war against the use of images, the 
Helladians, or inhabitants of Greece proper, fiercely 
adhered to the veneration of their ikons, and took the 
side of the pope. Love for the city of Constantinople 
had not yet taken possession of them. So deeply were 
the Helladians angered by the action of the ikonoklasts 
that they rose in insurrection and fitted out a fleet and 
sailed off against Constantinople to dethrone the em- 
peror Leon. But their ships were burned by Greek 
fire which was poured down upon them from the walls 
of the city, and their expedition came to naught. Leon 
continued his crusade against the images. Finally the 
pope excommunicated him. In return for Gregory's 
excommunication, the emperor withdrew several prov- 
inces from the immediate ecclesiastical jurisdiction of 
Rome. Among these was Eastern Illyria. This took 
place in the year 733. Whether the Helladians desired 
the transfer or not, was not then asked, and is not now 
determinable. At least they kept to their ikons. From 
the year y^Z down to the year 1821, they continued to 
be under the patriarch of Constantinople, and consti- 
tuted part of the eastern or Greek church. 

By their long and complete absorption into the 
eastern church, the Helladic communities lost all the 
individual and local characteristics which they probably 
possessed in the early ages. Of all the inhabitants of 
the eastern empire the Greeks were the most numerous 
and influential. The eastern empire therefore grad- 
ually became thoroughly Greek in language and to 
some extent in feeling. It is chiefly on account of its 



56 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

official language that the eastern church has become 
known to the writers of the West as the "Greek" 
church. For more than a thousand years the Helladic 
church was merely a portion of this greater Greek 
church, whose center was at Constantinople. After 
the Helladians ceased to be distinguishable from the 
other Greeks, their inspirations thenceforward came 
from Constantinople; they became entirely Byzantine. 
All their ecclesiastical sympathies naturally were 
thereafter not with Rome, whose Latin language was 
unknown to them, but with Constantinople, whose lan- 
guage was theirs. Even in architecture is this Byzantine 
influence clearly evident. Everywhere throughout 
Greece there stand churches and ruins of churches 
from the various epochs of this Byzantine period. All 
are built according to the style of architecture adopted 
for ecclesiastical structures in Constantinople, being 
either basilicas or more frequently domed edifices in 
the form of a Greek cross. In Athens there are several 
such churches, old and beautiful, of which the one 
sacred to the Saints Theodore is an interesting speci- 
men. It was built in the ninth century. 

During the first eight centuries there existed no 
serious variance between the Greek church of the 
East and the Latin church of the West. But differ- 
ences and jealousies that gradually developed brought 
about a separation which finally became formal and 
fatal in the year 1054, when Pope Leo IX excom- 
municated the patriarch Michael. The church of 
Greece naturally did whatever the church of the East 
did, being a part of it. 

As a result of the crusades, various western powers 



THE CHURCH OF GREECE 57 

came into possession of Greece and held it for upward 
of two hundred years, beginning at about the time of 
the Fourth Crusade, in 1204. But this sway of the 
Franks did not affect the religious belief of the in- 
habitants. They remained true to Constantinople. 

During all these ages there had been growing 
among the theologians of the East a belief in the 
principle that the church is a unit not in government, 
but merely in religious belief and practice, and that 
when other reasons demand it, the church of each state 
or nation may be entirely free from all jurisdiction 
coming from foreign authority. According to this 
principle, each national church may be independent and 
autocephalous. Accordingly the Greek church has 
gradually been subdivided. Russia and Greece and 
Roumania and Servia and other countries, whose re- 
ligion is identical with that of the ancient eastern 
church, acknowledge no ecclesiastical authority of the 
patriarch of Constantinople. 

The church of Greece, like all that portion of the 
eastern church which fell under Turkish dominion, 
suffered exceedingly after the fall of Constantinople. 
Education among the clergy had fallen very low. 
When at the beginning of the last century, the Greeks 
everywhere began to hope for final deliverance from 
bondage such men as Koraes and Doukas lamented 
the sad and ignorant condition of these ministers of 
Christianity. Even in the Ionian islands, which were 
under Venetian dominion, and enjoyed many of the 
benefits of a more civilized government, the clergy 
were so ill-educated that the phrase "ignorante com' 
un prete greco" was a proverb. 



58 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

In spite of this ignorance and lack of training, the 
clergy of Greece never entirely ceased to feel that they 
were placed for the betterment of the people. And 
when at last the moment came for Greece, after various 
stages of servitude for twenty centuries, to strike a 
successful blow for freedom, it was an ecclesiastic, 
Germanos, the bishop of Patrse, who blessed the ban- 
ner of the patriots and unfurled it at the church door 
of the monastery of the Holy Lavra. 

This revolution against Turkish sway broke out in 
the Peloponnesos in 1821. Immediately the patriarch 
of Constantinople, forced by the sultan, excommuni- 
cated the patriots. This measure, together with the 
suspicion that the Turk could at any future time use 
the patriarch against them, led the revolutionists to 
determine to ignore all documents and messages that 
during the struggle for independence might emanate 
from the patriarchate. During the war and for some 
time afterward, that is, from 1821 down to 1833 or 
later, there was no central government for the church 
of Greece. The patriarch was not recognized, and 
no other authority had been substituted. 

The first step toward reorganizing the church was 
made in the year 1828, when the president of the 
provisional government, Kapodistrias, appointed a 
committee to devise some way to restore order in 
ecclesiastical affairs. No conclusion, however, was 
then arrived at. In 1833, a synod of the bishops of 
the country convened at Navplion, declared that the 
church of Greece should be an independent branch of 
the eastern church, and that it should be governed 



THE CHURCH OF GREECE 59 

similarly to the manner in which the church of Russia 
is governed. 

The leading spirit in this movement toward separa- 
tion was the priest and theologian Pharmakides. He 
was perhaps the most learned ecclesiastic in Greece. 
He had studied theology in the university of Tubingen. 
Not all the Greeks, however, were in favor of separa- 
tion from the patriarch. Many looked upon such a 
course as schismatical. The leader of those who pre- 
ferred continued union with Constantinople was the 
theologian CEkonomos, who was equal in education 
to Pharmakides perhaps, but inferior to him in honesty 
of thought and in system. 

After the church of Greece had in the synod of 
Navplion declared itself independent, it was found 
difficult to announce the fact officially to the patriarch. 
It was well known that he would not acknowledge the 
announcement. The Helladic Greeks saw the necessity 
of not acting hastily, so as to avoid producing the im- 
pression that they were cutting themselves loose from 
the Greeks in the Turkish dominions, and elsewhere, 
who continued to look upon the patriarch as their head. 
In this way years passed, and no decisive measure was 
suggested either by the Greeks to be recognized as 
autocephalous, or by the patriarch to make it possible 
for their report to be received. 

At last, in the year 1850, the synod of bishops who 
had the direction of ecclesiastical affairs in Greece 
took the final step and announced to the patriarch the 
independence of their church. On receiving the an- 
nouncement the patriarch did just what the Greek 
synod had dreaded. He summoned in Constantinople 



60 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

a council of bishops, who after deliberation declared 
that the Greeks had not acted canonically, that the 
manner in which the church of Greece had been di- 
rected ever since the declaration of ecclesiastical inde- 
pendence was not correct, and that much that had been 
done would have to be undone. He, however, at the 
same time declared the church of Greece to be hence- 
forth independent in almost all matters ; but this condi- 
tion of independence was to begin not from the decision 
of the synod of Navplion in 1833, but from the utter- 
ance of the patriarch in this regard in 1850. He also 
sent to Greece a set of regulations for the direction of 
the future independent church. 

When this news from the patriarch reached Greece, 
CEkonomos and the friends of continued union with 
Constantinople warmly advocated the partial independ- 
ence offered. But Pharmakides vigorously defended 
the action already taken by the bishops of Greece, and 
wrote a book against the acceptance of the conditions 
placed by the patriarch. This book had great influence. 
And the result was that the Greek parliament, which 
had to consider the question, rejected nearly all of the 
regulations fixed by the patriarch. The only important 
condition which the parliament accepted was that the 
holy oils should always be procured from the patri- 
archate as a token of respect. 

When the patriarch saw no other course open except 
that of allowing the Greeks to have their own will in 
the matter, he, after a time, recognized the full inde- 
pendence of the church of Greece. And the church is 
now governed in accordance with the regulations pro- 



THE CHURCH OF GREECE 6 1 

posed by the bishops at Navplion in 1833, and finally 
reaffirmed with some modifications in 1852. 

The supreme management of all purely ecclesias- 
tical affairs rests with the Holy Synod. The president 
of the synod is the metropolitan archbishop of Athens. 
Besides the president there are four other members 
appointed annually, in the order of hierarchical sen- 
iority. These appointments are made by the civil 
government. 

It is probable that the church has a certain amount 
of influence in directing and sustaining the morals of 
the people. But this influence is by no means so effect- 
ive as it ought to be. One of the great hindrances 
toward the usefulness of the church is now as in 
Turkish times the lack of education among most 
of the clergy. Attempts have been made to remedy 
this evil, but success has not been great. The church 
itself can do nothing, for it is completely hampered 
by the state. And the state can do but very little on 
account of its famous poverty. 

When Greece became free, there existed a great 
number of monasteries, some two hundred and forty- 
five. It was soon decided to abolish all save eighty-six 
of these, and to employ the revenues of the properties 
attached to the monasteries in educating the clergy and 
paying the salaries of the bishops. The properties 
were confiscated accordingly, but the clergy have re- 
ceived exceedingly little benefit therefrom. 

Nearly everything noble in Greece is due to private 
good-will. This is the case also in respect of providing 
for the education of the clergy. Two rich brothers, 
Georgios and Manthos Rizares, from Epeiros, founded 



62 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

and endowed a school in which candidates for the 
priesthood may receive a collegiate classical education 
together with some knowledge of theology and kindred 
studies. This school is now flourishing, but many of 
the young men who study in the Rizareion abandon 
their intention of becoming clergymen, and adopt some 
other profession. 

Another step toward raising the condition of learn- 
ing among the clergy was the establishing of a school 
of theology in the university of Athens when this 
institution was founded in 1837. This school sends 
out several fairly well-educated clergymen every year. 

It is unnecessary to state that most of the clergy- 
men never attempt to preach the gospel. That duty is 
entirely beyond their powers. Most congregations 
hear a sermon only two or three times a year, if even 
so often. 

Notwithstanding all these disagreeable disadvan- 
tages, the church of Greece possesses a sufficient num- 
ber of ecclesiastical writers. In all the more common 
branches of theological investigation the Greeks are 
becomingly represented, although they cannot claim 
any theologian of eminence. They have not yet been 
able to break off from the old idea that religious 
polemics are the life of theological study. 

Such is a brief sketch of the church of Greece as it 
is and has been since its foundation in the first century 
down to the present day. 



THE MYSTIC RITES OF ELEVSIS 

In many natural religions there are performed at 
certain recurrent festivals and on the occasion of por- 
tentous events, peculiar clandestine and orgiastic rites 
which may be witnessed only by members of the clan 
or brotherhood. Secret ceremonies of this kind were 
not absent from the old Hellenic religions. Of all 
mystic sanctuaries to which only properly qualified and 
duly approved spectators were admitted, the most cele- 
brated in the classic ages and in subsequent history 
was the shrine of the twain goddesses at Elevsis. 

Investigators are unable to date the first beginnings 
of this Attic town of Elevsis. However, the discovery 
of prehistoric tombs near its ancient citadel indicates 
that is was well inhabited in the second millennium 
before Christ. Its advantageous position made it a 
center of opulence. It owned the fertile Rharian fields 
which stretch westward along the sea toward the Meg- 
arid, and the equally productive plain of Thria which 
extends eastward along the road to Athens. Through 
Elevsis passed the chief overland route between Attika 
and the rest of Greece. Its secure harbor made it an 
acceptable commercial station for the Phoenicians and 
other roving merchants of the eastern Mediterranean. 
The waters of its expansive bay teemed with fishes and 
sea fruit. But more than six hundred years before the 
beginning of our era the Elevsinians lost their inde- 
pendence and were absorbed in the Athenian common- 
wealth. This change, instead of proving detrimental to 

63 



64 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

their local religious practices, rather contributed to 
their preservation and further development. For the 
Elevsiniac cults were adopted by the victorious Athe- 
nians and became part of the state religion. 

The divinities in whose commemoration the mystic 
rites were performed are most popularly known 
through a fable called "the anthology," which has often 
been retold by poets and mythologists. The divine 
Persephone while romping with the daughters of the 
Ocean in the flowery fields of Nisa was kidnaped by 
Polydegmon or Plouton, the king of the Dead, and 
carried oft to become his consort and to reign with 
him forever in his silent halls. Her forlorn mother, 
Demeter, not knowing what fate had befallen Perseph- 
one, traveled the earth in search of her. The Sun, 
who was the only witness to Polydegmon' s act, finally 
revealed the facts. Thereupon Demeter, in her dis- 
pleasure, wandered oft to Elevsis, where she made 
herself known to Keleos the king, and caused him to 
build a temple sacred to her. In this temple she took 
up her abode, refusing to return to Olympos and to 
associate with the other gods until after her daughter 
be restored to her. She sent a destructive drought and 
blight over the earth, and it ceased to give forth its 
fruits. The human race was about to perish through 
famine, and then there would be no men to honor the 
gods by sacrifice. To avert these impending calamities 
a reconciliation was effected through the mediation of 
Zevs. Persephone was to stay for nine months of 
every year in the company of her mother, and for the 
remaining three was to reign with her gloomy husband 
over the shadowy souls of the departed. 



THE MYSTIC RITES OF ELEVSIS 65 

This myth, like the mystic cult based upon it, under- 
went various changes during the successive ages. How 
and when it began cannot be ascertained. Perhaps it 
was brought to Elevsis from Krete, as Gruppe confi- 
dently states in the history of mythology and religion 
which he wrote. At least in later times the Kretans 
are reported as believing that the worship of Demeter 
had, like other Attic cults, been transplanted from their 
island into Attika. Accepting the Kretan provenance 
of the cult, the ninth century before Christ may be 
assigned as the epoch during which the Elevsiniac 
sanctuary was established. But if Foucart's reasoning 
be correct, as he states it in his Researches on the 
Origin and Nature of the Mysteries of Elevsis, the cult 
is still older, and came from Egypt in the epoch of the 
Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, sixteen or seven- 
teen hundred years before our era. The earliest 
literary mention of this sanctuary is in the Hymn to 
Demeter, which was composed toward the close of the 
seventh century. This hymn shows, however, that the 
rites were then already venerably ancient. It also 
refers to their mystic character and to the blissful fate 
of all mortals to whose lot falls the happiness of being 
initiated into them. In the most primitive stages of 
their existence these mysteries were probably religious 
ceremonies performed at a shrine belonging to a few 
of the prominent families of Elevsis. Circumstances 
now unknown added some special virtue or glory to 
these rites. The privilege of participating in them was 
gradually extended to other Elevsinians. In historic 
times two Elevsinian families, the Evmolpids and the 
Keryks, possessed the secret of the mysteries by ancient 



66 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

inheritance transmitted from generation to generation. 
They conducted the mystic rites and presided over all 
the acts of initiation. It may therefore easily be sup- 
posed that those who originally established this cult in 
Elevsis were the progenitors of the Evmolpids and the 
Keryks. 

In the anthologic myth there are survivals of two 
kinds of primitive cult. Demeter, the Corn Lady, and 
Persephone, the Seed which annually remains hidden 
in the earth for a third of the year, are deities which 
naturally belong to agrarian rites; while Plouton, as 
the Dark Receiver and Possessor of the Dead, is a 
divinity closely connected with the worship of ances- 
tors. In their later developments the Elevsiniac mys- 
teries grew into a series of magnificent ceremonies, 
which bore very slight resemblance to rites of such an 
origin. But, nevertheless, the emphatic and exceptional 
way in which these mysteries nourished the hope that 
after death the human soul survives, recalls the primi- 
tive agrarian and funereal practices and may be 
explained by thinking that some resemblance was seen 
between the fate of mortals after death and that of the 
seed which is covered and hidden in the earth, but does 
not loose its vitality. 

The shrine of Demeter and Persephone, or Kore, 
must have been highly revered in the seventh century 
before Christ. On that account the Athenians, when 
they annexed Elevsis to their territory, incorporated 
the rites of these goddesses into the state religion of 
Athens. This official act occasioned a number of modi- 
fications in the Elevsiniac cult. Presence at the cele- 
bration of the mysteries, and participation in them, was 



THE MYSTIC RITES OF ELEVSIS 67 

no longer the exclusive privilege of the Elevsinians. 
Any Athenian citizen, any inhabitant of Attika, might, 
under prescribed conditions, be initiated and allowed 
to enjoy all the blessings that the mysteries could give. 
For the accommodation of the increased number of 
participants a larger temple or hall had to be con- 
structed at Elevsis. Mystic rites of this kind could not 
be performed in the open air, like most other Hellenic 
religious exercises. The preliminary and preparatory 
rites and purifications and sacrifices which each candi- 
date had to fulfil before being received into the temple 
of Demeter and her daughter were hereafter to' take 
place not at Elevsis, but at Athens. And after the 
completion of these preparatory ceremonies then all 
who were to see the mysteries went in sacred proces- 
sion on a fixed day from Athens to Elevsis. 

When the armies of Xerxes invaded Greece, in 480 
before Christ, they pillaged and burned the sanctuary 
of Demeter, where the mystic ceremonies used to be 
celebrated in Elevsis. But immediately after their 
departure the sanctuary was restored and the rites were 
continued. By their wise and patriotic conduct in the 
struggle against the Persian invaders the Athenians 
created for themselves the well-merited reputation of 
being the foremost and most enviable of all the inhabit- 
ants of the Greek world. Athens was for the Greeks 
what Paris once was for the inhabitants of Europe. 
The Athenians were regarded as models in everything 
that related to the higher and more cultivated and more 
spiritual life. From all quarters of the Hellenic world 
candidates applied for admission to the Elevsiniac 
rites. The extension of the privilege to all Greeks, 



68 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

whether Athenians or not, must have occurred shortly 
after the Persian wars, if not even earlier. Herodotos 
and Isokrates and others refer to this extension as to 
an established practice. And about 440 before Christ, 
so widely recognized were the claims of the Elevsiniac 
sanctuary that the Athenians passed a law regulating 
the manner in which the annual regular offerings of 
first fruits were to be delivered, gifts which Athens 
seems to have confidently expected and received for the 
sanctuary, not only from her allies, but also from many 
of the other independent Greek states. 

No amount of investigation will ever reconstruct 
for us a complete picture of what took place at these 
mysteries. The obligation of secrecy which was im- 
posed on every candidate for admission was never 
openly violated. Two chief considerations checked all 
indiscreetness in this direction. Whoever dared to 
divulge what he saw and heard within the holy walls 
not only committed an offense against religion and thus 
exposed himself to the vengeance of the gods, but also 
made himself a culprit before the laws of the state, and 
liable to punishment by death. Those who knew the 
mysteries never conversed about them without first 
assuring themselves that no uninitiated person was 
within hearing. In the year 431, the enemies of Alki- 
biades succeeded in having sentence of death passed 
against him by accusing him of different crimes, the 
principal one, and perhaps the only one mentioned in 
the official indictment, being that with a number of 
riotous companions he had one night parodied and 
ridiculed the rites of Elevsis. 

About the year 315 before Christ, a young man 



THE MYSTIC RITES OF ELEVSIS 69 

named Theodoros was sitting and chatting with Evry- 
kleides, the hierophant of the mysteries. Theodoros, 
wishing to tease his solemn companion, said that every 
hierophant was guilty of the crime of revealing the 
mysteries because, when accepting postulants and in- 
itiating them, the hierophant always imparted to them 
a knowledge of the secrets. Evrykleides, however, 
refused to regard the mysteries as a suitable topic for 
pleasantry. He brought an accusation of impiety 
against the wit-loving youth. Theodoros was con- 
demned to die by drinking hemlock, but perhaps the 
sentence was remitted through the influence of the 
archon, Demetrios of Phaleron. Pavsanias, who was 
an intelligent and curious tourist, was disposed to 
describe in detail the architecture and much of the his- 
tory of the shrines of the two goddesses in Athens and 
Elevsis, but suddenly cut off his description with the re- 
mark that in a dream he had been directed not to 
proceed farther in this respect. 

But notwithstanding this severe reticence regarding 
everything connected with these hidden rites, it is quite 
probable that something of what was to be seen and 
heard within the hall of initiation became known to 
even the "profane." Early Christian writers, in their 
attacks on paganism, refer to the mysteries and mention 
rites and formulas peculiar to them. This fact indi- 
cates that these ecclesiastical scholars, although not 
initiated in the mysteries, were nevertheless acquainted 
with them, at least partially. And their statements 
concerning the performances and utterances that con- 
stituted part of the mystic services are one of our chief 
sources of information. 



70 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

As a welcome supplement to the meager bits of in- 
formation scattered throughout the texts come some in- 
teresting facts furnished by archaeological research. A 
few antique vases have been found in Italy and Greece 
which are decorated with scenes illustrative of mystic 
initiation ceremonies. Scientific excavations made at 
Elevsis have laid bare the foundations of the ancient 
hall where the initiations took place and of the other 
shrines and edifices belonging in some way or other 
to the Elevsiniac cult. A number of inscriptions found 
at Elevsis and others found at Athens give precise in- 
formation concerning many of the outward features 
of the celebrations. And pieces of sculpture represent- 
ing the divinities worshiped in these rites assist in 
teaching us the nature of the divinities in question and 
therefore also the nature of the cult by which they were 
worshiped. 

In the fifth century and ever thereafter the postulant 
went through three sets of ceremonies or three stages 
of initiation. In the city of Athens he was admitted 
to what may be called the "first degree;" a few months 
later he went to Elevsis and entered the first degree of 
the Elevsiniac branch, or the second degree of the full 
series, and after a year he again presented himself at 
Elevsis for the highest and last degree. The entire 
process was about as follows : 

For several consecutive days in Anthesterion, the 
vernal month of flowers, the Athenians annually cele- 
brated within the city a festival in honor of Demeter 
and Kore. The rites performed at this festival were 
not open to the public and might be witnessed only by 
accepted and properly prepared postulants. To dis- 



THE MYSTIC RITES OF ELEVSIS 71 

ting-tush these rites from the celebration at Elevsis 
these less important ones were known as the "Little" 
or "Lesser Mysteries." From the name of the locality 
where the temple stood in which these little mysteries 
took place, they were also known as the "Mysteries in 
Agrse." Strangers who undertook the journey to 
Athens as postulants for admission were protected 
from all molestation, even in time of war, by a truce 
which lasted about fifty-five days. As a preparation 
for beholding the ceremonies each candidate bathed 
himself in a way prescribed by ritual in the river Ilisos, 
and offered certain propitiatory sacrifices. The puri- 
ficatory rites may have varied according to the needs 
of the candidates. Those who were guilty of deeds of 
blood and of other heavy crimes, if they had never been 
ritualistically purified, were not admitted. This ex- 
clusion of unfit candidates and the preparation of 
others by a purification adapted to their condition, 
presupposes some kind of confession of grave sins. 
After witnessing the secret rites the candidate was 
known as an "initiate" or "myst." Concerning the 
mysteries of Agrse no further and deeper information 
is available. In later times, in order to accommodate 
the great numbers of strangers who presented them- 
selves for initiation, these lesser mysteries were some- 
times celebrated twice in the same year, for no one 
might enter the Great Mysteries without previously 
being prepared by reception into those at Agrae. 

Every autumn, in the month of Boedromion, the 
mystic rites were performed at Elevsis. Every four 
years they were celebrated with exceptional magnifi- 
cence and accompanied by agonistic contests. Long 



72 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

before the time appointed for the beginning of the 
festival, messengers, sent out from Athens, announced 
the sacred truce to all the neighboring states. The 
celebration lasted about twelve days. The first few 
days were devoted to preparation. On the fourteenth 
of the month certain sacred and precious objects which 
were needed in Athens for the preparatory days of the 
festival, and which when not in use were kept carefully 
hidden in the Sanctuary at Elevsis, were carried by 
priestesses to Athens and deposited in a holy house 
called the Elevsinion, near the Akropolis. These 
objects were probably vestments and utensils used in 
the performing of the sacred rites and also certain 
objects connected with the worship of Iakchos, whose 
cult had been associated with that of Demeter and 
Kore. Perhaps, also, statues representing these divini- 
ties were among these sacra. From an inscription we 
learn that in the second century of our era it was 
customary for a company of young Athenian knights 
to constitute a mounted guard of honor accompanying 
these valuable sacra from Elevsis to Athens. The 
bearers of the sacra were escorted part of the way by 
the people of Elevsis, and on their approach to the 
city they were met by the people of Athens, who 
accompanied them to the Elevsinion with acclamations 
of pious welcome. As soon as these objects had been 
placed in the temporary repository in the Elevsinion 
the phsedyntes, or official who had charge of them, 
announced the fact to the priestess of Athena, the 
tutelary goddess of the city, and with this announce- 
ment the festival began. 

On the following day the mysts who intended to go 



THE MYSTIC RITES OF ELEVSIS 73 

to Elevsis were convoked into an assembly to hear the 
warning against all who were guilty of manslaughter 
or other heinous offenses and all who by reason of 
other prohibitions might not be initiated. Women pos- 
sessed equally with men the privilege of initiation. 
Children were received into the Little Mysteries, and 
possibly also into those of the first night at Elevsis. It 
seems that slaves of Greek descent were also occasion- 
ally allowed to participate. This condescension in 
favor of the slaves is the more remarkable because as 
a ru 1 e slaves were not allowed to associate on equal 
terms with free citizens in religious rites at Athens. 
Barbarians were strictly excluded. Each postulant, in 
order to be accepted and to receive instruction, placed 
himself under the guidance of a mystagog. The 
mystagog was by descent a member of either the 
Evmolpid or the Keryk family. Perhaps such postu- 
lants as were rejected by the mystagog might make a 
final appeal to the hierophant. Or perhaps the hiero- 
phant might reject candidates even when introduced 
and recommended by a mystagog. In the year 31 of 
our era the celebrated wonder-worker, Apollonios of 
Tyana, came to Athens and requested the privilege of 
initiation ; but the hierophant hesitated, saying that the 
gates were not open to magicians who communed with 
unclean spirits. But Apollonios was later admitted. 
It may be that occasionally the hierophants were put 
to their wits' ends to observe the strict law and yet 
accept candidates who though debarred for some cause 
or other could not recklessly and irresponsibly be 
turned away. When Demetrios came from Asia and 
won the temporary gratitude of the Greeks by driving 



74 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the Makedonians out of the Peloponnesos, he sent a 
message to the Athenians saying that he was about to 
arrive in their city and that he desired initiation into 
all the degrees of the mysteries. The Athenians, unable 
to expect the hierophants to violate the law which 
ordained that the first initiation should take place in 
springtime and the second in autumn and the third in 
the autumn of the following year, removed all diffi- 
culties by means of a wonderful casuistic juggling with 
the official calendar. They decreed that the month of 
Demetrios' arrival in Athens should for the nonce be 
officially known as the spring month Anthesterion, and 
after this prince had received the first initiation in the 
Little Mysteries this same month should immediately 
take on the name of the autumn month Boedromion, 
and that after the complete initiation was over this 
polyonymous month should reassume its own proper 
name. 

The candidates underwent some fixed kind of pro- 
bation and preparation. They performed certain puri- 
ficatory ablutions in the sea and offered prescribed 
propitiatory sacrifices, including that of a sacred pig. 
Magnificent sacrifices were also offered by the Archon 
Basilevs to bring the favors of the gods upon the 
government, the citizens of Athens, their wives and 
children. In commemoration of Demeter's nine days' 
wandering and grief in search of Persephone, the mysts 
fasted for nine days. Perhaps this fast consisted in 
eating nothing between sunrise and sunset, perhaps it 
was merely an abstinence from certain kinds of foods, 
as from meat, fish, beans, pomegranates, and apples. 
These preparatory rites and practices all belonged to the 



THE MYSTIC RITES OF ELEVSIS 75 

first days of the festival and were all performed at 
Athens. 

On the twentieth day of the month the mysts went 
in gorgeous procession from Athens to Elevsis where 
the most sacred and secret part of the rites were to be 
accomplished. They were accompanied by their friends, 
by the mystagogs, by a military escort of ephebs, and 
by a multitude of men, women, and children who took 
part in the pilgrimage out of piety toward the gods 
or out of simple curiosity. Thirty thousand may not 
be an exaggerated number to represent this crowd. By 
consecrated custom the journey was made on foot. 
This was not a light undertaking, for the Sacred Way, 
which joins Athens and Elevsis, measures more than 
eleven miles. When Athens became opulent and luxu- 
rious it began to grow common for richer individuals, 
especially fashionable ladies and courtesans, to ac- 
company the procession in carriages. To abolish this 
growing fashion Lykourgos introduced a law for- 
bidding it and imposing a heavy fine on all who might 
violate the law. Lykourgos himself was the first to 
pay the fine, for his wife was the first to offend against 
the law. The mysts wore crowns of myrtle, for myrtle 
was sacred to Demeter and Kore as being chthonic 
deities. In later times they usually dressed in gar- 
ments of white. Each man carried a torch, which was 
to be lighted at nightfall. 

In the procession the sacred objects which had been 
brought to Athens a few days previously were carried 
back to Elevsis by priests and priestesses and attend- 
ants. But the holiest object in the procession was a 
statue of the young god Iakchos, a sort of agricultural 



76 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

and orgiastic deity, whose worship had been combined 
with that of Demeter and Kore ever since the cult of 
Elevsis had become a portion of the religion of Athens. 
According to one myth, he was the son of Persephone. 
Specially designated officials had charge of the proces- 
sional car which carried the statue. In a kind of 
ecstatic frenzy the great multitude kept singing and 
shouting the name of this god, "Iakch, O Iakchos, 
Iakch, O Iakchos." It seems that the statue was 
needed in the performance of the secret rites. No 
other reason explains why it should thus be brought to 
Elevsis. 

Along the Sacred Way there were holy places, 
shrines, altars, and temples at which the pilgrims 
stopped and performed acts of worship. These delays 
so retarded their advance that night came on three or 
four hours before they reached Elevsis. Their last 
station was at Krokon's Castle, a village near the 
ancient confines of Athenian and Elevsinian territory. 
Here the descendants of the mystic hero Krokon, 
who were inhabiting the village, distributed saffron- 
colored ribbons, and each myst tied one of these round 
his right arm and another round his left leg. Shortly 
after this ceremony night came on, and the thirty 
thousand lighted their immense torches. They entered 
Elevsis toward midnight. After feasting and dancing 
and singing for some two or three hours, each one 
found some corner in which to rest as well as he could 
from his fatigue and regain strength for the great rites 
which were to begin on the evening of the approach- 
ing day. 

On the following night all who had a right to be 



THE MYSTIC RITES OF ELEVSIS 77 

received into the first mysteries at Elevsis, or the 
second degree in the entire mystic series, gathered into 
the great Telesterion, or Temple of the Twain God- 
desses. Modern excavations and investigations at 
Elevsis prove that at least three times this temple had 
been rebuilt, and each time on a larger scale. The new- 
est of the three was built in the fourth century and 
could accommodate about three thousand persons, being 
about one hundred and seventy feet square. If one- 
tenth of those who came to Elevsis were postulants, 
then this Telesterion could contain them all at one 
session. Certain preliminary ceremonies took place 
outside of the Telesterion, but within a great inclosure 
shut off from the eyes of the "profane." Here prob- 
ably the warning against all uninitiated was repeated. 
We do not know what precautions were taken to be 
certain that no uninitiated intruders entered the Teles- 
terion. Only one instance is known when outsiders 
succeeded in passing within the Mystic Temple. They 
were two young countrymen from Akarnania. They 
were put to death. After ascertaining that none save 
mysts were present the obligation of secrecy was en- 
joined. They then passed into the Mystic Temple. 

Within this hall the mysts were made to experience 
the most blood-curdling sensations of horror and the 
most enthusiastic ecstasy cf joy. No lamps were burn- 
ing to illuminate the hall. The weak light which may 
have dimly entered through the openings in the roof 
was on these moonless nights insufficient to allow the 
mysts to locate themselves in the spacious room or to 
recognize each other. They became a frightened 
crowd. The interminable suspense of the awe-stricken 



78 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

and groping mysts was at intervals relieved and pre- 
vented from turning into madness by occasional mystic 
phrases uttered by some unseen priest reminding them 
that their gropings were commemorative of the wan- 
derings of Demeter in search of her lost daughter, and 
that these horrors would therefore finally turn to some 
mysterious delight. It is probable that in later times 
tableaux were shown in the dim light, representing 
scenes in the Underworld. In the midst of this 
oppressive darkness a voice cries out in joy. Demeter 
is represented as having found her daughter. Brazen 
gongs resound. The doors of a sanctuary filled with 
dazzling light are swept open. The dazed mysts behold 
resplendent images of the gods, gorgeous priests, 
glorious scenes. The second and ecstatic act of the 
drama has begun. 

The secret rites seem to have been really the enact- 
ing of a great and thrilling drama, in which the mysts, 
though not the chief actors, were nevertheless not 
entirely passive. The scenes enacted were taken from 
the local Elevsiniac myth as it had been preserved by 
tradition in the sacred families of the Evmolpids and 
Keryks regarding Demeter's grief for her lost daughter 
and her joy when Persephone was restored to her. 
The myth as employed in the mysteries was supposed 
to differ from the common legend in many details and 
to be fully known only to the initiated, and to reveal it 
would be sacrilegious. But, nevertheless, since nearly 
all Athenians were initiated, the secret myth thus be- 
came a common piece of knowledge, and some of its 
details have entered into literature. It was chiefly a 
drama of action and of wondrous sights, interrupted 



THE MYSTIC RITES OF ELEVSIS 79 

now and then by the chanting of legends, or when the 
actors of the drama occasionally enunciated mystic and 
symbolic formulas. This prevailing silence increased 
the mysterious and impressive nature of the rites. 

Of the officials who presented the mystic drama, the 
principal ones were the hierophant, the torch-bearer, 
the altar priest, and the holy herald. In a certain 
portion of the drama the hierophant represented the 
demiourg or creator of the universe, the torch-bearer 
acted the part of the light-giving sun, the altar priest 
represented the moon, and the herald impersonated the 
messenger god Hermes. 

The hierophant was the most important personage, 
the grand master. He was appointed from among the 
Evmolpids and held the position for life. When 
ordained to this office he renounced his individual name 
and became hieronymous, being usually known and 
spoken of simply as "the hierophant." It would seem 
that he lived a life of strict chastity. For the perform- 
ance of the duties of his office it was regarded as 
necessary that he possess a good voice. This requi- 
site quality probably refers to the masterly manner in 
which he was expected to sing his parts in the mystic 
drama. 

When the doors of the sanctuary were swung open 
and the blazing light streamed out upon the initiated, 
a feeling of blissful consolation took possession of the 
assembled multitude. Before the eyes of the spectators 
the hierophant and other sacred persons robed in 
glittering vestments continued performing the mystic 
rites. According to the Elevsiniac version of the 
wanderings of Demeter, when the goddess arrived in 



80 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

the house of Keleos. the king of Elevsis, she refused 
all offers of refreshing nourishment until finally, re- 
called from her moody sadness and made to smile by 
the humorous remarks of the maid Iambe, she ordered 
that a beverage be prepared for her from meal and 
water. In commemoration of this mixture, which the 
goddess drank, the mysts after their fatiguing grop- 
ings in darkness received and tasted of a similar 
.beverage called the "kykeon.'' They also seem to have 
partaken of some other kind of food. 

After these holier ceremonies were over, and the 
mysts had seen and venerated and even touched such 
of the sacred objects as were to be shown to the 
initiates of the first night, proceedings of a less de- 
corous nature seem to have followed. These were 
exhibitions and words which served to recall the 
pleasantries of Iambe in the presence of Demeter. In 
other forms of the legend the girl who caused Demeter 
to smile was called Bavbo. And the fragmentary 
information which has been preserved concerning 
Bavbo is of such a nature that it tends to justify the 
attacks of the early Christian writers who often ac- 
cused the pagans of having immoral rites in their 
mysteries. Still, it is probable that the impersonation 
of Bavbo in the mysteries was rather coarsely humor- 
istic than really immoral. 

From the sketch just given some notion may be 
formed regarding the proceedings that took place on 
the night when the first set of Elevsiniac mysteries was 
enacted and made known to the initiated. On the fol- 
lowing night a second series of similar revelations was 
shown. But to these none were admitted save such 



THE MYSTIC RITES OF ELEVSIS 81 

as had received the lower initiation a year before. The 
mysts who witnessed these higher mysteries received 
the title of "epopts." Since the name merely means 
"beholders," it indicates that in these as in the myster- 
ies of the preceding night the rites consisted more in 
acts than in words. The greatest event of this night 
was the "showing of the sacra," an act from which the 
hierophant received his title. In this ceremony the 
doors of the anaktoron or penetralia were opened. No 
one might enter here save the hierophant alone. He 
stood at a holy table, upon and near which were the 
mysterious and much revered sacra. These the hiero- 
phant exposed one by one and held up to the worship- 
ing gaze of the beholders. Decorations, drapery, 
illumination, incense, increased the illusion and added 
to the magnificence. The epopts riveted their eyes 
on the holy objects in awe and silence approaching to 
fear. We do not know with certainty what these sacra 
were, but it seems probable that they were statues of 
the gods and sacred relics of different kinds. They 
must have included those sacred objects which had a 
few days before been carried with such pomp to 
Athens and then back to Elevsis in the Iakchos pro- 
cession. 

Perhaps it is in this part of the initiation that the 
notorious hierogamic scene took place, in which the 
marriage of Plouton and Persephone, and the birth of 
Iakchos were represented. The hierophant and the 
priestess of Demeter, acting the parts of Plouton and 
Persephone, descended into a dark retreat to represent 
the manner in which Persephone had been carried off 
to the kingdom of the god of the Underworld. On 



82 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

returning to the sanctuary the hierophant proclaimed 
that "the great lady Brimo has brought forth the 
divine Brimos," probably announcing by this formula 
the mystic birth of Iakchos, the son of Plouton and 
Persephone. Probably they carried up from the hid- 
den retreat an image of the young Iakchos and placed 
it in a cradle which as one of the "sacred objects" was 
waiting to receive him. 

Like the details concerning Bavbo, this gamic scene 
and another scene, from which nothing has been pre- 
served except the words "Hye Kye," that is, "descend 
in rain, O Zevs, and generate," and another detail 
representing perhaps the birth of an Elevsiniac hero 
called Evboulevs, have been attacked as indecorous. 
All that can be said in extenuation of the evident 
strangeness of these details is that they appealed to the 
ancient Greeks in a way absolutely different from the 
manner in which they would affect people of today 
imbued with more careful principles of morality. The 
attacks of the ecclesiastical writers were perhaps 
justifiable. 

In commemoration of the fact that it was Demeter 
who first taught the inhabitants of Elevsis how to sow 
grain and to prepare food from it, heads of wheat were 
distributed to the epopts, who received them in silence 
and reverence. This was regarded as one of the most 
ennobling events of the mystic rites. And with this 
ceremony the epoptic initiation ended. 

It is quite clear from abundant literary testimony 
that the general final effect of initiation in the myster- 
ies was elevating and consoling. The principal con- 
victions which the initiated carried away with them 



THE MYSTIC RITES OF ELEVSIS 83 

seem to have been that in the continued existence of 
the soul after death the initiated would have a happier 
lot than the darkness and punishments which awaited 
the "profane." From the first beginnings of Greek 
literary history down to the last days of pagan Hel- 
lenism, high-flighted poets, thoughtful philosophers, 
and careful historians agree in sounding the praises of 
the graces bestowed by these mysteries. But the lesson 
taught at Elevsis seems to have been one of enthusi- 
astic emotions and impressive suggestions, rather than 
of intellectual conviction. No well-defined and formu- 
lated doctrines were taught, except in later times, when 
neo-Platonic philosophy held the ascendency in Athens, 
and some of its precepts were perhaps incorporated 
into the Elevsiniac cult; for in those later days there 
were hierophants who had become members of this 
philosophical school. Initiation into the mysteries im- 
posed no obligation of thereafter leading a better life. 
According to the opinion of the initiated, they would 
enjoy happiness after death, not as a reward for any 
good or noble acts while on earth, but purely as a 
grace proceeding from the mysteries. 

In his famous painting on the walls of the Lesche 
in Delphi, representing the Underworld, the artist 
Polygnotos represented some women as condemned to 
keep forever trying to fill bottomless tubs with water, 
because they had while on earth neglected to be initi- 
ated. The cynic philosopher Diogenes turned his 
sarcasm against the Elevsiniac rites because pick- 
pockets and rentgatherers, if initiated, would have a 
happier future than Epameinondas, who had not pro- 
vided himself with the favor of the mysteries. Philon, 



84 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the Jew, objected to them on the same grounds. But 
the cynic scoffer and the Hebrew follower of Platon 
did not represent the common Hellenic feeling in re- 
gard to Elevsis, as is evident from the multitudes who 
crowded thither for initiation every year for more than 
ten centuries. Elevsis was even in the last days of Hel- 
lenic paganism "a bond of union in the human race." 
For few indeed are those who viewed the ques- 
tion of secret things with the philosophic independence 
of Demonax, who would not be initiated because he 
thought that whatever was good ought to be promul- 
gated broadcast, and what was bad ought to be exposed. 

After the initiation ceremonies were over, the plemo- 
choan rites were performed. These seem to have been 
libations in memory of the dead. Then all prepared 
to return to Athens, unless, as was the case in fixed 
years, if not annually, many prolonged their stay for 
two or three days in order to celebrate a series of 
athletic and stadia c games. Properly enough, the 
prizes offered in the contests celebrated here in the 
territory sacred to the corn goddess Demeter were 
measures of barley, reaped perhaps in the sacred 
Rharian plain. 

The return to Athens took place in the form of a 
procession, for the god Iakchos had to be escorted back 
to his sanctuary with becoming pomp. A short dis- 
tance outside of the city of Athens there was a bridge 
over the Kephisos River, which in the classic days of 
antiquity was as famous as was the statue of the 
Pasquino in the days of the Humanists in Rome. The 
returning mysts and epopts were encountered here by 
an immense crowd of sportive Athenians, and assailed 



THE MYSTIC RITES OF ELEVSIS 85 

by all kinds of raillery, jibes, and quodlibets. The 
initiated vigorously answered this shower of ribald 
darts by retorting in kind. Many in the crowd wore 
masks. Noted public men and their acts were open to 
the scorchings and criticisms of wit. Coarse vulgar- 
isms could not have been absent. After this battle of 
"gephyrisms" was over, all proceeded on to the city, 
where the statue of Iakchos was replaced in the sanc- 
tuary, and the rites of Elevsis were finished for that 
year. 

Even after Greece lost her independence and became 
a Roman province the mysteries continued to flourish. 
The Romans had accepted Hellenic culture, and were 
not to be excluded from Elevsis ; and great numbers of 
them took the trouble of being initiated, including sev- 
eral of the emperors. But the sun of paganism began 
to lose its splendor. Julian, in his attempt to recall the 
disappearing forms of the past, tried to arouse new 
enthusiasm for the mysteries. In the year 364, the 
Christian emperor Valentinian issued an edict forbid- 
ding all nocturnal heathen celebrations, but, yielding to 
the prayers of the pro-consul of Achaia, made an 
exception in favor of the cult of Demeter at Elevsis. 
But the doomed end was near, for the Great Master 
of higher mysteries, the Nazarene, had conquered. 
The house of the Evmolpids, which for a thousand 
years had controlled the Elevsiniac cult and from 
which the hierophant was always to be chosen, perished 
heirless. Toward the middle of the fourth century 
the hierophant who initiated the rhetorician Maximus 
and his biographer Evnapios was indeed an Evmolpid, 
but he was the last of his line. In the year 394, the 



86 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

emperor Theodosios the Second ordered the temple at 
Elevsis to be closed. Taking - advantage, however, of 
some favorable opportunity, the wrecked but stubborn 
adherers to the old cult called a Mithras priest from 
Thespise and set him up as hierophant in the temple of 
Demeter. But the usurper's exaltation was brief. In 
the year 395, Alaric and his army of Visigoths came to 
Elevsis and completely pillaged it. Earthquakes and 
all-destroying time and the hands of man have con- 
tinued the work of desolation. And now Elevsis is 
merely a hillside overlooked by a mediaeval Frankish 
tower and covered with intricate heaps of ruins which 
the natives used to carry off as building material for 
their huts, where English dilettanti and French sa- 
vants and Greek archaeologists have loved to make 
researches, and among which the daughters of Illyrian 
invaders, who dwell near by, step their dances to Alba- 
nian music on the feast days of their patron saints. 



DELPHI 

No fertile fields in near vicinity, nor grassy pasture- 
lands, nor seahaven that might lure the gain-greed of 
merchants gave existence and fame to Delphi. The 
site was not one on which a prosperous city could be 
founded. All the undying reputation of Delphi is due 
to the splendid sun-god Apollon, who here chose to 
dwell and here had a shrine wherein his ministers pro- 
fessed to reveal to men the mysteries of futurity. The 
shrine may have been established by the pristine in- 
habitants of the neighboring fever-laden plains, pos- 
sibly Boeotians, who in summer time came with their 
flocks to these elevated regions to enjoy the pure air of 
Parnasos and the fresh waters of Kastalia and Kas- 
sotis. 

The colossal grandeur of the locality rendered it a 
fitting shrine for the habitation of a great god. Two 
solid cliffs which the Delphians called Hyampeia and 
Navplia, perpendicular and majestic, wall and shade 
the stony gorge from which Kastalia flows, and where 
the holy precinct begins. This precinct is near the top 
of a long declivity now greened to some extent with 
olive and other trees, which descends to a great depth 
down to the rocky bed of the torrent Pleistos. West- 
ward from Delphi a winding road gives communica- 
tion with the olive-planted fields of Amphissa, and with 
two or three ports on the gulf of Korinth. But the 
most ancient worshipers came up to Delphi neither 
from the plain of Amphissa nor from the sea; but 

87 



88 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

rather from some eastward district, perhaps from 
Boeotia. 

The town which grew up round the sanctuary 
existed since prehistoric times. There was a settlement 
here at least two thousand years before Christ, as is 
proven by objects found in ancient graves which the 
French excavators have opened, and by fragments of 
primitive pottery which these scholars have gathered 
from under the foundations of Apollon's temple and 
elsewhere. These graves date from all the succeeding 
ages from the times when the Mykenlanders flourished 
down to the sixth century after Christ. 

After the establishing of the oracle and the founda- 
tion of the town, the history of Delphi is in great part 
the story of how the neighboring tribes successively 
strove to get possession of the shrine, of how the larger 
states of Greece jealously used to try to exercise a 
preponderating influence over the mantic ministers of 
Apollon, of how foreign nations and potentates hon- 
ored the god and sought his foreseeing guidance, and 
of how countless numbers of individuals from all ranks 
of society disclosed to him their longings and troubles, 
expecting assistance. 

When the Iliad and the Odyssey were written, the 
town and the shrine were known by their more primi- 
tive appellation of the "Pytho." In extant literature 
the later name of "Delphi" occurs possibly for the 
first time in an anonymous hymn in praise of Artemis, 
the sister of Apollon, and then in a fragment of the 
writings of Herakleitos. Even after the general prev- 
alence of the later name, the earlier one was never 
forgotten nor less appreciated. It occurs again and 



DELPHI 89 

again in the lyric songs of Pindar and in the dramas 
of the tragic poets. It was a genuine place-name, while 
"Delphi" is a people's name, and signifies not the place 
and the town, but rather the tribe of Delphmen who 
dwelt there. In its infantile days the Delphic com- 
munity was neither independent nor autonomous. Five 
hundred and ninety years before Christ the Delphmen 
by a ten-years' war of successful issue sundered the 
allegiance which long had bound them to the town of 
Krisa. Thereafter the Delphmen were usually masters 
of the town and shrine, but nevertheless more than 
once had the humiliation of beholding their power 
appropriated and administered for longer or shorter 
intervals by other clans. 

The most imposing and revered structure here was 
the massive fane of the Pythian Apollon. It was at least 
five times destroyed or injured and four times rebuilt or 
repaired. Fire and earthquake and marauders were 
the leveling forces. The newest restoration was com- 
pleted shortly after the year 67 of our era, when Nero 
visited Delphi and ordered that the temple be recon- 
structed. The ruins of its foundation still are visible. 

It is quite probable that owing to its time-honored 
sacredness and to its secluded situation, which was an 
appreciable advantage during the ages of war and bar- 
baric incursions, Delphi never became entirely desolate. 
The Delphmen became Christians and were at one time 
sufficiently numerous and important to have a resident 
bishop. This was before the seventh century. Hien> 
kles, who at the beginning of the sixth century wrote a 
Travelers' Guide, mentions Delphi, but tells us very 
little about what the city then was. After him the 



90 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

magic name appears no more on the pages of history 
or chronicle. The aged town soon must have dwindled 
into a most silent-lived hamlet. A century ago no 
Delphman called his village by its classic name. Like- 
wise the steep sides of the gorge from which Kastalia's 
streams flow out had also changed their appellations. 
The eastern or Hyampeian cliff was known as "Phlem- 
boukos," and Navplia, the western side of the gorge, 
had become "Rodini." The Kastalian fountain had 
been converted into "the well of Saint John," and the 
Kassotid spring which used to inspire the Pythiad 
priestess had been transferred to the patronage of 
Saint Nicholas. The town itself was simply spoken 
of as Kastri, or "The Camp." 

Some years ago, however, "The Camp" was pur- 
chased by the French government. The Kastriots 
were moved to another site farther west. In 1892, 
French scholars began the toilful work of systematic 
excavation. Since then they have unearthed most of 
what had not been totally destroyed of Pythiad Delphi. 
And by wandering over the excavated region and 
through the treasure-filled museum it is now possible 
with the assistance of literature to conjure up mentally 
a glorious picture of what Delphi formerly was. 

Apollon was not the original deity of Delphi. Ac- 
cording to the local theologians the most primeval 
shrine here was sacred to Gsea, the spirit of the earth. 
After the cult of Apollon had insinuated itself, it 
quickly became so pre-eminent as to overshadow all 
the preceding cults. It did not annul these earlier 
cults, however, nor did it preclude the introduction 
of the new cults. Gsea and Themis and Poseidon and 



DELPHI 91 

Dionysos and Athena and other deities had their re- 
spective shrines. 

Apollon's cult was originally the worship of the sun. 
Helios, the sun-god, was an object of adoration among 
almost all the Hellenic tribes. But at Delphi the deity 
Helios came to be, in the course of time, not the 
physical luminary of the heavens, but rather a personi- 
fication of a spiritual light which enlighteneth man- 
kind. The change in the god's attributes may, at least 
for convenience, be associated with the change in 
the form of his name, from "Helios" to "Apollon." 
This ennobling spiritualization of sun worship and its 
transformation into a kind of ideal religion may be 
accredited to the local theologians of Delphi. Probably 
it was they who first gave currency to the new name 
"Apollon," as the appellation of a personified spiritual 
and intellectual light. From Delphi the new and higher 
doctrine was carried into other parts of Greece, and in 
most places of note, with the single exception of 
Rhodos, the altars of Helios were converted into altars 
of Apollon. 

But Apollon never entirely ceased from being a sun- 
god. By his solar powers he overcomes the god of 
darkness, clears the misty air, dries the moisture from 
the rocks, melts the chilly snows, and, bursting out 
through the clouds, stops the rainstorms. This is the 
"Pythian" Apollon; and the slimy Python or dragon 
which he slays with his sunbeams or arrows is the chilly 
demon of night and floods and frost. In art, the 
slayer of the dragon came to be represented as the 
slayer of the lizard. Hence the beautiful statue by 
Praxiteles. 



92 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

In his higher and more intellectual character the 
god assumed a new name; he was known not only as 
the "Pythian," but also as the "Delphian" Apollon. 
Many of the characteristics that distinguish the 
"Delphian" from the "Pythian" cult were said to have 
been introduced into Delphic theology by Kretans from 
the town of Knosos. Likewise the religion of the 
island of Delos, which, according to other ante-classic 
traditions, was the birthplace of Apollon and his sister, 
had some influence on the beliefs and rites of Delphi. 
Thus, by natural evolution, and under various influ- 
ences from far and near, did the worship of the sun 
come to be one of the purest and most intellectual 
forms of Hellenic religion. As sun-god he was the 
measurer of years and of time. As holding time under 
his control he was master of the past, the present, and 
the future. Thus he knew all events that ever hap- 
pened, and all that were going to happen in future 
time. As god of time he naturally became the god of 
prophecy, and his shrine was the most reputable pro- 
phetic center of the Hellenic pagan world. 

Being the god of intellectuality and spirituality and 
inspiration, his ministers adopted and disseminated 
various doctrines regarding the higher destinies and 
duties of men. The human soul did not decay and 
perish with the body, but lived forever in conscious 
existence. The souls of the departed should therefore 
not lapse from the memory of their surviving relations 
and friends and countrymen, but should be duly hon- 
ored by proper rites and libations and sacrifices. The 
condition of the soul in its existence beyond the grave 
depended much on the deeds performed during a man's 



DELPHI 93 

life on earth. Accordingly a doctrine recognizing sin 
was believed in. But what was equally salutary and 
elevating, the possibility and obligation of atonement 
was a fundamental belief. With terrible punishment 
did Apollon visit sinners and criminals, including those 
whose transgressions were condonable, but who had 
not performed the necessary liturgical rites of purifi- 
cation and acts of atonement. If we possessed the 
complete code of morals and philosophy that emanated 
from Delphi, or if we only had Polygnotos' wonderful 
pictures of the Underworld, we would find both the 
code and the pictures to be for the most part most 
edifying documents. The "Gnothi seavton" taught 
every pilgrim that "the proper study of mankind is 
man; " and the "meden agan" urged him to avoid all 
excess in things that are otherwise good. 

Apart from the daily services that were enacted 
regularly at Delphi, there were other more solemn 
ceremonies that were performed only once a year, or 
once every fourth year, or, in the earlier ages, once 
every eighth year. At these annual or rarer festivals 
great was the concourse of pilgrims. Some came to 
consult the oracle. Others desired to offer some sacri- 
fice to Apollon or to some other favorite god or patron 
hero. Others were attracted by the scenic splendor of 
the ritual, or by the gorgeous processions, or by the 
various intellectual and athletic and agonistic contests. 
Others presented themselves as poets, or as wrestlers, 
or runners, or leapers, or javelin throwers in the con- 
tests that always followed the religious ceremonies, or 
rather were an integral or complementary part of these 
ceremonies. Others came in hopes that their well- 



94 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

trained steeds might win for their owners glory and a 
laurel crown in the hippodrome. 

In these contests music and poetry held exalted rank, 
for Apollon was the leader and inspirer of the nine 
muses. After the contest of chanted hymns was over, 
such poets as were adjudged worthy of laureate honors 
might cause their verses to be incised on marble monu- 
ments to be erected within the holy precinct. Frag- 
ments of such stones have been unearthed, containing 
not only the words of the hymns, but also the musical 
notation of the melody to which the hymns had been 
sung. Apollon loved his imitators, the poets. 

The sacral processions at these festal concourses 
must have been highly picturesque on account of their 
unaffected but gorgeous naturalness. A fictitious de- 
scription of such a procession occurs in the story called 
"^Ethiopian Adventures" written in the fourth century 
after Christ by Heliodoros who afterward seems to 
have become a Christian and to have been consecrated 
bishop of Thessalic Trikka. At the time when his 
Grace directed the affairs of the church of Trikka, 
Delphi still continued to be a venerated shrine. This 
Heliodoros describes a procession organized by The- 
agenes and his retainers who had made a pilgrimage to 
Delphi on the occasion of the feast of Neoptolemos, 
the son of Achilles. Theagenes lived in Hypate, an 
^nian town. He claimed to be descended from 
Achilles, and consequently was the chief director of the 
ceremonies round the grave and shrine of Neoptolemos. 
Heliodoros represents the Egyptian Kalasiris as nar- 
rating to friends at a symposium the following descrip- 
tion of the procession : 



DELPHI 95 

At the head of the ceremonious train came a hecatomb of 
bulls for immolation, led by rural men in rustic habiliments. 
Their white tunics were looped up under their girdles at one side. 
In his right hand, each man brandished a two-edged axe. The 
right arm was bare to the shoulder. The bulls were all black, 
with proud necks gently arching upwards; with horns smooth, 
straight and sharp-pointed. Of some the horns were gilded; 
others were bedecked with wreaths of flowers. Their shanks 
were well curved and their shoulders deep. The number was 
one hundred exactly, so as to be a hecatomb in truth. 

Behind the bulls were driven in manifold variety numer- 
ous herds of other victims, each kind being in a distinct group. 
Flute-players and pipers produced a ritualistic melody, fore- 
tokening the sacrifices. 

Next after these droves and herdsmen, there came Thessal 
virgins shapely and stately; with tresses loose, hanging in wave- 
lets over their shoulders. They were separated into two bands. 
In the first band, some carried baskets filled with flowers and 
fruits. Others had panniers of cakes and of perfumes and 
incense which loaded the air with fragrancy. They carried 
these things on their heads. Their hands being otherwise free, 
they kept hold of each other and were marching in rhythmic 
step, with movements forward and obliquely. Thus as well as 
walking onward, they were also dancing. The rhythmic music 
which they obeyed in their evolutions and steps was furnished 
by the second band of virgins ; for these were havng the privi- 
lege of chanting the hymn of the feast. This hymn was a prayer 
to Neoptolemos and a eulogy of Thetis and Pelevs and their 
son Achilles, the progenitors of the hero Neoptolemos. The 
verses of the hymn were about as follows : 
Thetis the goddess I sing, 
Thetis of golden hair, 
Her the immortal child 

Born from Nerevs in the sea; 
Who by Jupiter's promptings, 
Married herself to Pelevs; 
Her the delight of the sea, 
Lovely as Venus we deem ; 



96 helladian vistas 

Mother of him whose spear 

Ever was anxious for war, 
Him whose fame in Greece 

Is bright as the lightning of Zevs, 
Godlike Achilles ; him 

Whose glory reaches to Heaven, 
Him, whose son and Pyrrha's 

The great Neoptolemos was ; 
Merciless fighter against 

Trojans, but savior of Greece. 
O Neoptolemos, Hero, 

Be thou propitious to us. 
Blessed art thou, for thy grave 

Is here in Pythiad earth. 
Graciously deem to accept 

The gifts that we offer to thee. 
Guard and defend us thy people 
And country from every fear. 
Thetis the goddess I sing, 
Thetis of golden hair. 
Such was the canticle. Admirable was the harmonious 
movement of the dancers. The echo of their measured pacings 
kept treading exact time with the meters of the hymn. The 
onlookers were fascinated no less by the melodious sounds than 
by the rhythmic movements. The choral strains seemed to be 
luring them to leap up and join the choir of dancers. But 
their attention was soon diverted to those who followed. For 
next in the procession came fifty young men on Thessalic horses. 
In their midst was their chieftain, conspicuous beyond all 
words of description. Twenty-five rode in front of him, and 
twenty-five were behind him. Their sandals were laced round 
their ankles with thongs of scarlet leather. Their blue-bordered 
mantles of white were fastened on their breasts with brooches 
of gold. Their steeds were fired with the uncurbed spirit of 
the boundless plains of Thessaly, where they had been reared. 
They champed their bits and would like to spit them from 
their foaming mouths, preferring to be guided not by the reins 
but by their riders' word of command. Their caparisons were 



DELPHI 97 

ornamented with silver and gold, as though their riders were 
vying with each other in this respect. 

Such was the display which Theagenes and the 
/Enians made, in this festive pomp. 

The procession directed its course to the grave of 
Neoptolemos. Three times did the Thessal horsemen 
prance round the hero's tomb. Then at a given signal 
all the victims were slaughtered in sacrifice. Piles of 
fagots were placed on a spacious altar near the grave. 
Pieces of meat from the slaughtered animals were laid 
on the fagot-piles. Then the priestess of Artemis 
approached and gave to the ^nian chieftain a blazing 
torch of holy fire, with which he ignited the fagots. 
Thus were the sacrificial meats consumed by the flames. 
After this, the priest of Apollon poured out a libation 
to the hero, and the sacred part of the ceremony was at 
an end. 

There were many objects of interest at Delphi. 
Somewhere near to the great temple of Apollon was 
erected a monumental stone called the "Omphalos." 
It was supposed to indicate a point equidistant from 
all the extremities of the earth. Different rich cities 
had built treasure-houses at Delphi, in which were kept 
the utensils and paraphernalia needed for their sacred 
ceremonies. Individuals and states erected costly 
monuments and dedicated precious votive offerings in 
the temples. In the eighth century before Christ, when 
the ninth book of the Iliad was composed, the shrine of 
Apollon was already rich in its quantity of votive 
wealth. This wealth continued to increase, until the 
fourth century before Christ, when portentous sacri- 
legious despoliations were perpetrated. The men of 



98 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

Phokis plundered the temple, and their wives were 
seen wearing necklaces and other historic jewelry that 
had been kept for centuries in Apollon's house. In the 
first century before Christ, Sulla, the Roman dictator, 
mulcted the shrine of its gold and silver, joking at the 
pious hesitancy of those who asserted that they heard 
Apollon twang his harp in threat ful anger when they 
entered the sanctuary to rob it. Nero sent hence 500 
statues to Rome. Constantine, the emperor, carried off 
statues and monuments for the decoration of his new 
Roman capital at Byzantion on the Bosporos. Among 
the objects thus brought to Constantinople was the 
brazen column of the Three Serpents upon the coils of 
which were engraved the names of the cities that had 
aided in driving the Persian invaders out of Greece. 
The mutilated monument still stands in the Hippo- 
drome of Stamboul. But the Phokians and Sulla and 
Nero and Constantine were only a few of the many 
despoilers. 

Many of the votive offerings, from the most pre- 
cious to the most insignificant, were intended to be 
testimonials of gratitude in return for advice or en- 
lightenment vouchsafed by the oracle. Every category 
of life-problems was represented in the questions which 
Apollon was called upon to solve. Commonwealths 
sought his advice before undertaking to establish new 
colonies, and kings before declaring war. Seamen 
consulted him about their voyages, farmers about their 
fields and crops, and negotiators about their loans and 
debts. Men who were going to travel asked for fore- 
knowledge concerning their future adventures. The 
avaricious requested direction in the amassment of 



DELPHI 99 

wealth. Young men solicited information concerning 
the advisability of getting married. Isyllos, the poet, 
wrote a paean in honor of the god Asklepios, and then 
inquired from Apollon if it would be proper and lawful 
to engrave the ode on stone. 

The official mediators between the invisible god and 
his questioning worshipers were the Pythiad sibyls. 
The manner by which they were ordained and ap- 
pointed to the discharge of this exalted function we do 
not know. It was required that they be pre-eminent 
among the women of Delphi both by descent and by 
integrity of life. In the ages when the concourse of 
questioners was great, two or three sibyls might hold 
the prophetic office contemporaneously, so as to relieve 
each other in rotation from the exhausting strain. But 
in later times, when the credit of the shrine began to 
wane, one sibyl sufficed. Besides the sibyl or Pythiad 
priestess there were scribes and other functionaries 
who recorded her utterances, and assisted in the cere- 
monies that surrounded the act of prophesying. Before 
uttering an oracle, the priestess robed herself in official 
raiment, drank water from the Kassotid fountain, and 
chewed a mixture which contained laurel leaves and 
barley. She seated herself on a high tripod near which 
a current of prophetic air, the "divinus afflatus," issued 
from an opening in the earth. Soon she fell into a kind 
of ecstatic fit, and uttered the sentences which were 
reputed to be prophecies. Her utterances were usually 
in verse, and her favorite lines were hexameters. In 
later times, when the Greek language became too un- 
yielding and rigid for the easy composition of extem- 
pore verses, the priestess more frequently deigned to 



ioo HELLADIAN VISTAS 

make her responses in prose. But in imperial times, 
when a pedantic love for antiquity influenced many- 
professions, the Pythiad priestess resumed the more 
frequent use of hexameters. 

The pilgrims who wished to be favored by a re- 
sponse from the oracle began their immediate prepara- 
tion by a symbolic purification in the waters of 
Kastalia. Perhaps they sprinkled themselves with it 
as did Kalasiris in Heliodoros' story. They made an 
offering of a cake and a sheep or goat or other more 
valuable animal. By lot they were in turn admitted to 
the sacred penetralia where they beheld the frenzied 
sibyl seated on the tripod surrounded by priests and 
attendants. Specially favored persons might enter at 
once, without having to wait for their opportunity by 
lot. Women, it seems, were not permitted to enter the 
room of prophecy. 

For more than a thousand years the oracle deeply 
influenced the fortunes not only of Greeks but also of 
strangers. Many noted men sought to have their 
course of action guided or sanctioned by the sibyl, 
from the day when Agamemnon, king of men, stepped 
across her threshold and asked about the fate of his 
expedition which he was undertaking against Ilion, 
down to the day when Julian the apostate sought her 
counsel in his war against Sapor of Persia. During 
the first three centuries of our era Delphi was still a 
favorite pilgrimage. In the reign of Augustus, the 
writer Konon could still truthfully represent the 
prevalent Hellenic conviction when he stated that the 
Delphian Apollon was yet the most reliable god of 
vaticination. But the inevitable end was approaching; 



DELPHI ioi 

and so far as the influence of the Delphic priestess was 
concerned, the decree of Theodosios which he issued in 
the year 385, forbidding all consultation with the 
oracles, was almost superfluous. The voice of the 
ancient sibyl was rarely heard. When for a second 
time the emperor Julian, that devotee of the waning 
cults, asked for her prophetic help, she told the quaestor 
Oribasios to bring back to the emperor the response 
that "the holy shrine is desolate. Phcebos no longer has 
a shelter there, nor prophetic laurels. His fountains 
no longer speak, and the mantic waters are dried up." 



IN BCEOTIA 

Boeotia is a much-decried land. Its climate has 
always been insalubrious, and its inhabitants have 
always borne a unique reputation for stupidity. W "hat 
attractions can such ill-famed country hold out to the 
wanderer, and how can it claim the interest of the 
scholar ? Twenty-five hundred years have rolled away 
since, in the theater of Dionysos, the playwright Phere- 
krates blared out his warning that "every man of 
sense should keep far away from Boeotia." Phere- 
krates' splendid comedies have all perished, but this 
bitter verse is one of the few lines that have been 
preserved, and is familiar to every Hellenist; such is 
the vitality of a word of reproach when dexterously 
spoken. But nevertheless, the much-abused country 
is not without interest; it was the cradle of all kinds 
of mythic and legendary lore: its long history has 
been full of strange and uninvestigated vicissitudes. 
As anyone may see who reads the fragmentary notes 
that once were ascribed to the pen of the historian 
Diksearch. this land possessed some attractions even 
for that unknown traveler who. along with plentiful 
slander of his own investigation, has kept for us this 
line of Pherekrates : for he took the laborious pains 
of visiting on foot many of the principal towns and 
shrines and sights of the land which he was reviling. 

It was Boeotia's fortune or misfortune to lie 
adjacent to Attika. From the earliest historic days 
there existed hate and jealousy between Thebes the 

I02 



IN BCEOTIA 103 

leading city of Bceotia and Athens the center of life 
in Attika. Fate had it that the history of Bceotia 
should become known to the world, not through native 
but through Attic writers. Woe to a reputation which 
is to be molded and transmitted to posterity by a 
hostile neighbor. From the Attic writers the lettered 
men of Rome and all subsequent schools of Europe 
have borrowed their views regarding Bceotia; and 
thus "crassus aer," "pingues Thebani," and "sus 
Bceotia" always enter into our notion of the character 
of the Boeotians and their country. 

Bceotia consists of two great plains separated by a 
ridge of hills, and surrounded on all sides by chains 
of mountains. The southern plain is undulating; the 
waters which flow down into it from Kithseron and 
Helikon easily move off to the Evbcean Gulf through 
the Asopos River. But the northern plain is perfectly 
flat, and is completely shut off from the sea, so that 
the streams which flow into it have no outlets except 
through underground tunnels or "katabothra" which 
the water has made for itself under the mountains. 

These natural underground channels have always 
had a tendency to choke up, and a portion of this 
northern plain has always been a lake or marsh, 
known as Kopais. From the earliest times, however, 
the inhabitants round Kopais often took pains to keep 
the katabothra open, and to keep the lake at its mini- 
mum size, in order thus to be able to cultivate as much 
as possible the better-drained parts of the plain and to 
pasture their flocks in the marshier portions. Indeed 
the Kopaic Valley is so valuably fertile that attempts 
have been made in various ages to drain it completely, 



104 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

either by artificially enlarging and improving the kata- 
bothra or by cutting a new outlet through the moun- 
tains. The latest of such undertakings has been made 
during the last half of the last century, and was a 
few years ago brought to something like completion 
by an English society, after French and Greek enter- 
prises had become bankrupt in the attempt. 

The oldest traces of hydraulic engineering in regard 
to Kopais are attributed to the Minyans, a people who 
in the second millennium before Christ flourished here. 
They cleared out the katabothra and built levees of 
earth and stone along the banks of the rivers so as to 
prevent the spread of the water over the plain. Possi- 
bly they also undertook to tunnel a large and 
straighter opening from the lake to the sea, thus 
insuring complete drainage independently of the 
capricious katabothra. At least in a saddle of the 
mountain ridge which lies between the lake and the 
sea, a tunnel which was to have been two miles in 
length was begun in ancient times, and was finished 
to the length of half a mile. If this undertaking was 
the work of the Minyans, its interruption and aban- 
donment can possibly be accounted for by the long 
wars against Thebes which finally brought about the 
subjection and humiliation of the famous Minyans. 
The draining of the lake was one of the achievements 
contemplated by Alexander the Great; and he ap- 
pointed the engineer Krates to study the problem and 
begin the work. But Krates' plans were also never 
completed. 

The immense labor and skill which the Minyans 
expended upon this drainage system became part of 



IN BCEOTIA 105 

the traditional lore of antiquity, and were used as a 
patent and lasting indication of the former wealth of 
this panarchaic people. That their knowledge of 
engineering and hydraulics was not only remarkable 
in their remote age but would be noteworthy even in 
ours, receives easy proof from the fact that the Euro- 
pean engineers, who in our own day replanned the 
draining of the lake, were guided in many important 
details by the yet existing traces of the works of the 
old Minyans. 

The chief city of the Minyans was Orchomenos, 
which Homer names along with Egyptian Thebes as 
being exceedingly opulent. But in historic times it 
was noted only as being a determined and irreconcil- 
able enemy of its more powerful rival, Thebes, the 
mistress of the southern plain. Today the traveler 
can locate only two mementos of its former life and 
glory: the Akidalian fountain where, in classic times, 
there was a shady shrine sacred to the Three Graces, 
and the colossal domed tomb of some prehistoric ruling 
family of Orchomenos, now roofless and desecrated. 
This structure is of the "Mykensean" style of architec- 
ture, and by tradition which, though based on a mis- 
take, yet well re-echoes the stories concerning the 
magnificent wealth of the ancient Orchomenians, has 
by later Greeks of classic times been called the 
"treasure-house of the Minyans." Such is the name 
under which Pavsanias describes the tomb, who saw 
it in the second century of our era. The powerful city 
had long before" his time disappeared. At present two 
small villages occupy a portion of the site. And the 
place once adorned by the sanctuary of the Graces is 



io6 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

now occupied by the falling walls of a Basilian mon- 
astery built in the year 872, whose ever-willing hospi- 
tality often won the gratitude of many a tourist, and 
which, having been rendered uninhabitable by the 
earthquakes of 1894, is never again to be restored and 
in its turn is now about to be succeeded by something 
modern, possibly by an agricultural school. Thus 
even in dreamy Greece the prosy pursuits of practical 
life are mercilessly supplanting the poetry and religion 
of Hellenic and Byzantine idealism. 

Although the Minyans open Boeotian history, they 
are not indisputably the first and earliest inhabitants 
of this Kopaic country. In ages which may have 
been earlier than the glorious days of Orchomenos, 
there existed a large and strong fortified city in the 
eastern part of the plain, a city so old and long ago so 
forgotten that not even a conjecture can be made as 
to what may have been its ancient name. Neverthe- 
less, it may not be older than the first centuries of the 
Minyan period. When it was built and when it flour- 
ished, the katobothra were not sufficient to carry off 
the water from this part of the plain, and accordingly, 
the town stood in a large lake. This city communi- 
cated with the land round about the lake not only by 
boats but also by means of raised roads built through 
the water. Remains of at least one such chaussee 
were discovered by the modern draining company, 
when this part of the plain was again laid bare. The 
chaussee which joined the island city with the north- 
ern shore where now stands the village of Topolia 
was about a mile in length. And this was the nearest 
passway from the island to the shore of the ancient 



IN BCEOTIA 107 

lake. The ruins of the prehistoric town still show 
the lower courses of the city wall and the foundations 
of various buildings. The island is visible as a promi- 
nent object from all parts of Kopais. The circum- 
ference of the city was about two miles. The ruins 
are now most commonly known by the Albanian name 
of "Goulas" which simply means the "castle." 

In those ancient days every populous city in 
Greece and in Greek lands had a tendency to become 
an entirely independent state. In fact the names "city" 
and "state" were for the most part interchangeable 
terms. Each country possessed as many inde- 
pendent states as there were well-inhabited and flour- 
ishing cities in it. Since there were two such cities 
here in Boeotia at the dawn of Greek history, it fol- 
lows that at least two independent states should have 
existed. Thus the city of Orchomenos constituted 
the state which had possession in the north valley, and 
the Kadmeian Thebes owned the southern plain. But 
since the geographical unity of the country did not 
favor this division of territory, there was from 
remote times a continual war between these neighbor- 
ing city-states, each one being desirous not only to 
subject and weaken the rival power but even to destroy 
it utterly. This injurious rivalry caused incalculable 
damage to both contestants. Both of these cities at the 
very beginning of the historic period, not willing to be 
strong by assisting each other, succumbed to a third 
power, to a horde of invaders from the north, who 
came down from Arne, of Thessaly, and overran all 
the fertile country, giving to it the name of Boeotia; 
for these invaders were the Boeotians of history. 



108 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

With this invasion and with the transferring of 
ownership to the victorious newcomers, Thebes and 
Orchomenos did not cease to be aggressively jealous 
of each other. But Orchomenos gradually declined 
before her rival; and finally Thebes became indis- 
putably the leading city of the whole land. A kind 
of confederacy was formed in which, under the hegem- 
ony of Thebes, each one of the sixteen or more 
cities of Boeotia enjoyed a restricted independence. 
This arrangement was never satisfactory to the sub- 
ordinate cities, especially to Orchomenos and to the 
towns which lay along the southern mountain groups 
of Kithseron and Helikon. Accordingly a continual 
strife went on. 

In many respects the mountainous borderlands of 
Bceotia are more interesting than the fertile plains 
of the interior. In these high regions there was 
quite a number of towns. They lay in a wide circle 
around Thebes which occupies the center. This ele- 
vated rim which enframes the midlands is in some 
places merely colossal piles of wildly bare limestone, 
and in other places sloping steeps covered with pines 
and laurels and other mountain vegetation. Number- 
less nestling springs and soft tumbling rivulets water 
the soil and temper the heat of the summer air. The 
inhabitants of these border towns, having the moun- 
tains just above them and the loamy plains just below, 
are, and always have been, partly shepherds and partly 
farmers. Their vines and wheat-fields covered the 
valleys, and their flocks of goats and sheep browsed 
among the mountain shrubs. The copses and dales 
in these high regions were all peopled by the mystic 



IN BCEOTIA 109 

superstition of the imaginative peasants and shepherds 
with all kinds of agreeable and disagreeable super- 
natural beings. Near the top of Ptoan Hill, at a 
point from which a good part of all Bceotia may be 
seen, Apollon had a favorite sanctuary, where he 
distributed his wise sayings to all who went there to 
consult his oracular agents. The strange and un- 
Greekly hero Trophonios had his subterranean shrine 
near the dewy town of Lebadeia, and those who 
wished to know their fortunes had only to consult 
him. But this was not a light affair; for those who 
descended into his awful cave and witnessed its 
horrors and were subjected to its harrowing ritual, 
could not laugh for a long time afterward. Indeed 
Athenseos tells of a man who when pushed up from 
his visit to the cave had entirely lost the power of 
laughter. Years later he happened to regain this 
blessed faculty by the sudden hilarious effect produced 
on him by a ridiculously clumsy specimen of sculp- 
ture representing the goddess Leto, which he saw at 
Delos. 

But of all the sacred precincts in the highland 
nooks, the most beautiful one, and the one most 
revered by subsequent history and poetry, is the dale 
which was sacred to the Nine Muses, the heavenly 
patronesses of the fine arts. Like all the other 
denizens of these Boeotian shrines, the Muses were not 
autocthons, but immigrants. They came down into 
this fair land from the north; their last station 
in that colder country being Pieria at the foot of 
Olympos. Their new sanctuary at the foot of Heli- 
kon was not a temple but a green and shadv grove 



no HELLADIAN VISTAS 

lying on both banks of a mountain brook. On three 
sides of the grove rise the green tree-covered slopes of 
Helikon. To the north of the entrance into this 
semicircle stands out the high hill on which was the 
city of Askra where the shepherd-poet Hesiod lived; 
and farther away to the east was the town of Thespise 
which possessed Phryne's unique gift, the statue of 
Eros cut from a block of Pentelic marble by the 
inimitable chisel of Praxiteles, a masterpiece which 
one Roman emperor confiscated and transported to 
his palace in Rome, and which a second emperor in a 
fit of atonement restored to the Thespians, and which 
a third emperor again carried off to be lost forever 
in Italy. 

Where the center of the grove was, there now 
stands an antique church of the Holy Trinity. Indeed 
there are, strange to say, quite a number of churches 
in the grove today, some five or six, and a deserted 
monastery of St. Nicholas. When the Boeotians 
became Christians they did not cease to love this 
beautiful place, but merely supplanted the forgotten 
Muses by new and heavenlier patrons. 

So far as nature goes, this valley looks today very 
much as it did when centuries before our era Hesiod, 
while tending his flocks, learned to sing wise songs to 
the peasants of his town, and to the whole world for- 
ever. The Boeotian ploughman still punches his oxen 
with the same rude goad as his prehistoric ancestors 
used, and cultivates his field with the same wooden 
plough as Persevs, the lazy and contentious brother 
of Hesiod, disliked to tread after. Shepherds still as 
ignorant, as cunning, and as picturesque as were the 



IN BCEOTIA ill 

companions of Hesiod browse their goats around the 
spring of Hippokrene. The wide view over the grove 
from the lonely tower on Askra hill is just as grand 
as it was when Hesiod lived on that windy summit. 
But if nature is the same, the works of man which 
once beautified and ensouled nature here are gone. 
If it be true that nature pleases or appalls chiefly when 
associated with analogous deeds of man, then the 
grove of the Muses adequately inspires the wanderer 
only when he recalls the high works of man which 
once adorned and enchanted this place. But all these 
inspiring embodiments of the ideal have disappeared. 
How exceptionally beautified by the artistic hand of 
man this remote corner of Hellas must have been, is 
evident merely from the long list of statues of muses 
and gods and heroes and noble men which incomplete 
records tell us of having been here. But although 
these great works are lost forever, or at least buried 
in the soil of the dale, yet it is not nature alone that 
influences the lone worshiper here. The past resouls 
itself. Myron's Dionysos again seems to be standing 
under the vines, and the statues of the Muses which 
Constantine carried away as an ornament for his new 
city on the hills of Byzantion are back again, each one 
in the graceful attitude of the copies that adorn the 
museums of Europe. When the spellbound wanderer 
picks his steps through these groves and climbs 
through the myrtle bushes to the cool well of Hippo- 
krene, or sits near the monastery of St. Nicholas 
under the trees that cover the bubbling waters of 
Aganippe, his soul is by no means restricted to what 
he sees of the beautiful nature which smiles out from 



112 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

eternity around him. The witchery of the place con- 
verts him into a communicant with all its nobility 
of art and song and dream. He contemplates 
ideals which are beyond the reach of others' eyes and 
ears. 

But in the plain also the Boeotian country was rich 
in noted shrines. And these, like those of the hill 
country, were of foreign origin. The city of Thebes, 
the central point of this level district, has always been 
in the old traditions brought into connection with the 
myths regarding foreign influence and imported civili- 
zation. Hither it was that Kadmos came bringing 
from Phoenikia a Semitic colony and Semitic gods, and 
what was most important of all, a Semitic alphabet, by 
the adopting of which the Greeks finally learned to 
write by phonetic system. Whether most of this 
oriental influence came directly from Asia or rather 
from Krete is now a question which present archaeo- 
logical investigations will soon answer. 

Another remarkable feature about our knowledge of 
the plain and its central city Thebes is that much of 
its early mythical history reached the Attic writers not 
through Boeotian channels, not through pure local 
legend, but rather through stories that were made not 
in Boeotia at all but in Argos. Theban legends have 
furnished a rich and varied lot of material to artistic 
literature, but several of the stories which have been 
most preferred, and which have been preserved to us in 
the dramas of the great tragedians of antiquity, as in 
the Seven against Thebes or in the Phcenik Maids, 
come in good part not directly from Boeotian sources 
but from Peloponnesian. Boeotia was a country rich in 



IN BGEOTIA 113 

literary material, but as a rule it was foreigners who 
made best and most frequent use of it. 

This inability or neglect of the Boeotians to formu- 
late the stories of their own lives was due in great part 
to the fact that they never were a united people with 
sufficient pride in themselves to care for their nation- 
ality. In addition to the continual local wars which 
Thebes waged against the smaller towns, in her attempt 
to keep them outwardly leagued with her, there existed 
another cause of dissension. This was the social and 
political gulf which always separated the aristocratic 
from the common inhabitants in Bceotia. The aristo- 
crats were noted for their lack of patriotic virtue. In 
the fifth century, when Xerxes, the Persian, attempted 
to conquer Greece, they turned traitors to their father- 
land, and placed their cities and soldiers at the service 
of the invaders. Again in the fourth century before 
our era, finding themselves unable to hold their power 
against the people, they again betrayed the city of 
Thebes, and handed it over to a Spartan army and 
garrison. Their principal fame lay in their lavish use 
of the plentiful products of these fertile fields. They 
were famous as luxurious and gluttonous feasters. It 
was natural for such men to be also lazy and arrogant. 
Even when they lost their wealth, they retained their 
other evil characteristics. What Herakleides of Pontos 
says about the impoverished aristocrats of Thespise 
may well apply to similar inhabitants of all Bceotia, 
that "they had the reputation of being poor but proud. 
They looked down on men who had to live by handi- 
craft or by farming ; they would not allow a shopkeeper 
to enter their place of assembly for ten years after he 



114 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

had retired from business, and most of them owed 
large sums of money." They were also contentious 
and querulous. 

When the oligarchic upper class was so rude and 
uncivilized, one might not expect to find many virtues 
in the class just below, the class of inhabitants which 
stood between the aristocrats and the slaves. But yet 
this middle class once rose up under the leadership of 
a dozen patriots from aristocratic families and, by 
matchless military successes, gave to Thebes and 
Boeotia a short but wonderful period of glory as a 
state. As a sociological phenomenon it may be noted 
that it was not the plebeians unled and unaided who 
created this period of glory. It was brought about by 
the pre-eminent abilities of a few leaders who were 
themselves of aristocratic blood and training, but who 
by their virtues and patriotism won the sympathy and 
support of the brave and intelligent plebeians. This is 
the old lesson of civilization which forever will be re- 
peated. The leading man in this great uplifting of 
Boeotia was Epameinondas. He it was who at Levktra 
and Mantineia proved that the farmers of Boeotia, led 
by their invincible phalanx, the "Sacred Band," had 
become the first military power in all Greece. The in- 
vincible ability of one great man is shown in Epamei- 
nondas. Perhaps the noblest deeds of Greek history 
happened under his guidance. But after he fell on the 
victorious battlefield of Mantineia, no successor existed 
able to guide the Boeotians to other victories or even 
to hold the honors which they had already won. Their 
glory as a state began with the hour when on a dark 
and stormy night a few patriots of spirit akin to that 



IN BCEOTIA 115 

of Epameinondas took down the brass trumpets that 
had been prepared for the heralds of the festival of 
Herakles, the Theban mythic hero, and with them 
blared out freedom for Thebes and deliverance from 
the Spartan garrison and the oligarchic oppressors; 
and the glorious period ended at the hour at which, 
when he learned that his soldiers had won at Mantineia, 
he pulled the painful spear-head from his wound and 
died on the battlefield. It is sad to think that of 
Epameinondas we have no full account. Xenophon, 
who wrote for us the best description of the victory of 
Levktra, just outside the grove of the Muses, was so 
prejudiced against the Theban hero that he described 
the conflict in detail without mentioning or referring 
to the man who, by introducing new field tactics, and 
inspiring his men with his own personal courage, won 
the battle which forever destroyed the Spartan su- 
premacy in Greece. It is a strange fate that among 
the many biographies which the good-souled Plutarch 
wrote, the life of Epameinondas should be one of the 
few that have been lost. This life would have been 
the more interesting because Plutarch was himself a 
Boeotian. And since Plutarch was a native of the 
country now under discussion, while deploring the loss 
of his life of Epameinondas, it is not out of place to 
add a word of praise in favor of this gentle and world- 
known biographer. And the word of praise which 
will be added is that of General Gordon, who, during 
the siege of Khartoum, wrote down in his diary these 
lines : "Certainly, I would make Plutarch's Lives a 
handbook for our young officers ; it is worth any num- 
ber of 'arts of war' or 'minor tactics.' " 



Il6 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

Excepting Thessaly, there is no other plain of 
Greece which can compare with Bceotia as having so 
often been the scene of portentous battles. It has been 
called "Areos orchestra," or "the war-god's dancing- 
ground." Besides the numerous battles of Greeks 
against Greeks it was here that the Persian invaders 
were finally defeated near Platsea, and Grecian liberty 
was permanently assured. And again, when the centers 
of Hellenic greatness were about to be shifted from 
Greece proper to Egypt and Asia, it was in this same 
land of Bceotia, on the field of Chseroneia, that Greek 
liberty was forever lost. For here it was that Philip, 
who had been educated in Thebes, assisted by his son 
Alexander, who on this battlefield first proved his 
wonderful strategic skill, completely overwhelmed the 
last defenders of old Hellenic freedom. And it is 
worthy to note that along with the Athenians who could 
not be absent from such a noble battle, the bravest 
defenders of disappearing independence were the The- 
ban soldiers of the Sacred Band, descendants of those 
who had in ages gone by given earth and water to the 
Persian envoys as tokens of traitorous submission and 
slavish alliance. Epameinondas' spirit had, after all, 
survived his death. The Athenians brought their dead 
back to Athens, but the Thebans buried their fallen 
soldiers on the field. Over the common grave they 
placed a colossal lion of marble. But they wrote no 
inscription. The event was too irreparably sad. The 
lion is still there. 

On account of the boorishness of the uneducated 
among the Boeotians and the sensuality which pre- 
vailed in the aristocratic classes, it might be wrongly 



IN BCEOTIA 117 

concluded that letters and learning and culture were 
entirely foreign to Boeotia. But such a condemning 
judgment would be exceedingly wrong. Numerous 
are the names of scholars and philosophers and poets 
who were Boeotians. For the rest, it would be very 
strange that a country which possessed the most noted 
shrine of the Muses, and where the Graces were 
especially honored, as at Orchomenos, by all Boeotians, 
and where Apollon was at home on so many hilltops, 
and where Dionysos, the patron of the drama, was re- 
puted to have been born, should be entirely devoid of 
intellectual and literary life. One can indeed admit the 
worst, and say that in comparison with her great neigh- 
bor, Attika, Boeotia did not revel in the higher pursuits. 
But yet, as is clear, she did not entirely neglect them. 

There exist two noted poems which surely were 
written in Boeotia, and probably by Hesiod. Of these, 
one is the "Theogony," which was for the Greeks the 
first systematic molding of the various myths concern- 
ing their gods into one great and not illogical system. 
This Boeotian poet not only formulated herein a theol- 
ogy and cosmogony for the Greeks, but also put into 
intellectual shape the stories which afterward were so 
useful to the poets of the highest Greek period. The 
second poem, known as "Works and Days," is a kind 
of bucolic song in which Hesiod gives all kinds of 
useful advice to his brother Persevs. It is purely the 
product of an agricultural and pastoral country, while 
the "Theogony" properly owes its birth to a country 
teeming, like Boeotia, with sanctuaries and haunts of all 
the gods, foreign and domestic, that entered into the 
spiritual life of the Greeks. Both poems are proper 



Il8 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

outcomes of the intellect of the shepherd boy who 
learned to sing his songs while pasturing his sheep and 
lolling in the shade round the shrines of Helikon. His 
poems are full of all kinds of proverbs and adages, a 
characteristic of the thoughts of men who lead such 
life. 

To those who do not well know the history of the 
expression of thought, the poems of Hesiod are an 
insoluble mystery. He made his two great songs chiefly 
for his fellow-shepherds and peasants, but never- 
theless he did not use their dialect. No Bceotian could 
easily understand the language of Hesiod's poems, and 
consequently no Bceotian could speak it, without having 
artificially learned to do so. The new science of 
epigraphy has taught us sufficient of the Bceotian 
dialect to inform us how different it was from the 
literary language of Hesiod. Perhaps the man who 
writes an eternal poem never is inclined to use the 
language which the swineherd uses to his pigs. An 
ideal language is sought after, and each poet gets it 
from a different source, perhaps. Hesiod, instead of 
taking the language of his fellow-countrymen, took 
the artificial dialect which had been created by the 
Homeric rhapsodists; and in this he composed. The 
Bceotian shepherd-poet gives a great lesson in aesthet- 
ics, which his countrymen of today sadly need to learn. 
Hesiod was perhaps inferior to other poets of Bceotia, 
whose works have been lost. The Boeotians themselves 
admired much more strongly the songs of the sweet 
Korinna. Korinna wrote in dialect, and every boor 
of Bceotia could understand every word she sang. But 
the after-world had not time to learn Bceotian dialect, 



IN BCEOTIA 119 

and while keeping Korinna's name has not kept her 
songs. They have all perished. Hesiod became one of 
Virgil's models, who thought it proper to repeat in 
Latin torgue for Latin ear the spirit of the songs of 
Askra; "ascrseumque cano romana per oppida carmen." 
It is pardonable to devote so much space to Hesiod, 
because he and his works are of the very essence of 
Boeotia. 

In contrast with this man who sang primarily for 
the shepherds and peasants, stands Pindar the Theban, 
who rolled forth his mighty lyrics in praise of the rich 
and noble families in his own Boeotia and in other parts 
of Greece. How great was Pindar's fame from the 
very first is clear from the stories they told in olden 
days of how when a boy he once fell asleep in the grass, 
and the bees, attracted by the sweetness of his mouth, 
filled it with their honey; and a graceful epigram tells 
of how Pan, the jolly god of rustic song and pastoral 
flute, was captivated by Pindar's lofty strains, and 
neglecting his own livelier tunes used to rove through 
glens and mountains chanting Pindar's poems. Pindar, 
like Hesiod, sang in a language not Boeotian. But in 
all respects he was a man wider and greater than his 
provincial country. When Alexander came into Thebes, 
and, to punish the patriots who had tried to hold their 
liberty against him, burnt the city, even he, the irre- 
sistible conqueror, had the inspiration to save from the 
flames the house where Pindar had once lived. 

It is a pity that Korinna's works have been lost. A 
few of her verses have survived to us, but they have 
been much altered by copyists, who could not appreciate 
the Boeotian dialect, and tried to make the lines intel- 



120 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

ligible to ordinary readers. She must have been a 
highly gifted poetess, for at least once she won a prize 
in a contest with Pindar. Korinna was not the only 
literary woman of this land. Another poetess, almost 
her rival in fame, was Myrtis of Anthedon. The Boeo- 
tians were rather of the ^Eolic division of the Greek 
race. And it is remarkable that this ^Eolic branch was 
most favored by having women of culture. Sappho 
was, like Korinna and Myrtis, an ^Eolian, although not 
a Boeotian. Woman seems to have been more the equal 
of man among these ^Eolians. The Boeotians respected 
woman. It is agreeable to know that the fault- 
finding traveler some of whose writings are preserved 
under the name of Diksearch, although he in many 
ways reviles the inhabitants of Boeotia, yet speaks only 
praises for the Boeotian women, and especially for those 
of Thebes. Hesiod also shows that he felt high regard 
for woman in general, but from his poems one might 
easily suspect that he made partial exception in regard 
to his own consort, who seems not to have been a 
delightful choice. Likewise in Theban myth, woman 
plays an important role. And these old stories have 
furnished to ancient drama one of the noblest char- 
acters of all literature, the faithful daughter and faith- 
ful sister, Antigone. 

After the battle of Chaeroneia, the fate of Boeotia 
was that of a conquered land. The leading towns lost 
their importance. Thebes indeed was rebuilt, but never 
returned to its former significance. In the first century 
of our era, when Dion Chrysostom saw it, Thebes was 
simply a village. The incomprehensible decay which 
began to eat into the old Hellenic centers of life spread 



IN BCEOTIA 121 

its germs over the fair lands of Boeotia. Like an act 
of clownish, but bitter buffoonery, a copy of Nero's 
histrionic speech proclaiming liberty to all Greece was 
set up at the shrine of Ptoan Apollon by a man who 
bore the sacred name of Epameinondas. 

The day had come for the old gods to pass away. 
The shrines gradually ceased to satisfy the wants of 
even these simple Bceotians. The mantjc spirits on 
Ptoan Hill and by Herkyn's stream, the Tilphossian 
nymph, the naiads around the Graces' spring, the dew- 
fresh Muses, the whole world of former thought and 
imagination and religion passed into silence, into the 
bosom of eternity. 

Then came new men from strange climes. Goth 
and Slav and European took turn in newly ravishing 
this land, which persistently after each calamitous in- 
road of destroyers would again bloom out into a new 
life. In the year 1146, Thebes was a happy and rich 
town. Its silk industries were prized the world over. 
But it is dangerous to be wealthy and weak. The 
adventurous soldiers of Roger the Norman, king of 
Sicily, sailed into the Korinthiac gulf and disembarked 
into .Boeotia. They plundered and pillaged with in- 
describable thoroughness. Each inhabitant of the city 
of Thebes, after being deprived of every object in 
sight, had to take an oath on the Holy Scriptures that 
he had concealed nothing of value. The Sicilians 
carried off a sufficient number of Thebans as slaves 
to establish the manufacture of silk in Sicily. And 
thus the art spread to Europe. Another circumstance 
that witnesses to the general prosperity of Boeotia in 
the Byzantine ages is the fact that it was thickly popu- 



122 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

lated. And this fact is testified to by the many churches 
that exist in ruins all throughout the country. These 
date from different centuries, beginning with the ninth. 
All the places in Bceotia marked by ancient Christian 
shrines would make a long list, if enumerated. And 
numerous churches are not built in waste and aban- 
doned lands. Accordingly Byzantine Bceotia was a 
populated and comparatively prosperous country. 

When, by the fortunes of the Fourth Crusade, the 
Byzantine empire became a Latin possession, Bceotia 
fell under the dominion of Othon de la Roche. The 
seat of government was at Thebes. The glory of the 
court life in the Frankish palaces on the Kadmeia of 
Thebes almost surpasses belief. Boccaccio in his 
Decanter one has left us a few lines of description of 
this Theban splendor, in the part where he narrates 
the history of the Princess Alathiel. It is recorded that 
the language spoken in these halls rivaled in purity the 
best specimens of French in its native soil of France. 
Songs which troubadours sang in Thebes are still 
preserved. 

But this chivalrous Frankish life had its vicissitudes 
and its end. The Westerners could not protect their 
new countries from each other's greed. Here in 
Bceotia, the French rule was destroyed by an army of 
Spanish Catalonians. whc plundered the country and 
burned its castles, and then tried to restore it to pros- 
perity and to rule over it. The castle of St. Omer in 
Thebes was famous in history and song for the won- 
derful paintings on its walls, representing the exploits 
of the Crusaders in Palestine. But the Catalonians 
burned this palace also, and now nothing of it remains 



IN BCEOTIA 123 

except a solitary tower standing near the edge of the 
modern village. 

In 131 1, the Catalonians came into Thebes, and 
from that year does its permanent and final insignifi- 
cance date. It never prospered again. Perhaps the 
last great scene on the site of this old and sacred town 
took place in the autumn of the year 1376, when, by the 
arrangement of Pope Gregory XI, there gathered here 
the flower of nobility and chivalry and ecclesiastical 
dignity from all the Latin posessions in Hellenic lands, 
together with the knights of Rhodos, the emperor of 
Constantinople, and princely representatives from Hun- 
gary and Venice and Sicily and Taranto and Kypros 
and Genoa to devise some common plans of attack 
against the Moslem. But the synod was without prac- 
tical result. 

With the final departure of the Latins, and the 
arrival of the Turks, Bceotia became closed to all 
progress and to all hopes of recuperation. During this 
period it has no history worth meditating on. 

But when again there came the time for the yet 
living sparks of Hellenism and civilization to rekindle 
into fires of liberty among these ancient hills, Boeotia 
was, in spite of the lethargy of ages, ready to act a 
heroic part. Almost at the very first outbreak of the 
war for independence Boeotians were in the field, and 
fighting; for in March of 1821, Athanasios, the deacon, 
a man of matchless bravery and patriotism, raised the 
banner of freedom in the town of Lebadeia. 

Bceotia is today one of the most prosperous of the 
provinces of Greece. But progress goes very slowly 
when it starts from where modern Greek civilization 



124 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

had to take its new beginnings, and when it has only 
such aids as are at the disposal of the Greeks of today. 

Here in Bceotia there are two peoples living side by 
side, Greeks and Albanians. But they do not look upon 
each other as strangers or rivals. In time the Albanian 
portion will forget its separate origin. 

Such are some of the characteristics of this land of 
Bceotia, which, although so small and in a sense so 
insignificant, has had so large a part in history. Thfr 
entire province is not more than 1,119 square miles in 
size. 



THE LAND OF THE KLEPHTS 

The most inaccessible region of all Greece is the 
savage mountainland which begins at the Gulf of Nav- 
paktos and extends through the middle of the country 
northward to the Turkish border. Near the south end 
of this rugged land dwell today the miserable Krab- 
arits; the northern end, high up near the frontier of 
Albania, is the home of the Joumerk shepherds and 
muleteers; and the central portion, from Mt. Belouchi 
to Mt. Karabas, is the canton of Agrapha, so famous 
in Romseic folklore and song. 

The mountain range bears different names in differ- 
ent localities. If for scientific brevity there is any 
advantage in designating this entire system of peaks 
and ridges by one comprehensive appellation, the most 
satisfactory way of doing so would be to call it the 
"Pindos" Range. This is the ancient and modern name 
of the northern portion of the system, including all the 
mountains within the limits of Agrapha. The reason 
for this multiplicity of names lies partly in the fact that 
these untamed mountaineers have since their first 
appearance in history been always divided into a num- 
ber of separate and mutually hostile tribes. They were 
never effectually inspired by any spirit of neighborly 
and assimilative fraternity. No tribe acted in sympathy 
with the others. They had nothing in common. 

In the opinion of the inhabitants of the surrounding 
plains they were all equally barbarous and fierce. They 
were expert spearsmen, whose skill had been acquired 

125 



126 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

in hunting the wild game which in their forests 
abounded, and in ever descending in looting expeditions 
against the men of the towns in the plains. Noble 
indeed and dangerous must have been the swift and 
savage beasts that infested these wastes, inciting the 
mountaineers to develop their innate fleetness of foot 
and to perfect their unerring skill of eye and hand in 
hurling the javelin or sending the arrow. Xenophon in 
his treatise on Hunting furnishes some information re- 
garding the varieties of animals that were to be found 
here. He asserts that throughout the wild district 
lying between Mt. Pangseos of Makedonia and the 
Acheloos River, which flows just west of the Pindos 
Mountains, not only were leopards and panthers and 
bears and lynxes plentiful, but even lions roamed 
through these lonely regions. This statement of Xeno- 
phon regarding the lions is supported by similar dec- 
larations in the writings of Herodotos and Aristotle. 

Outside of hunting and marauding these ancient 
mountaineers had no other laborious occupation. They 
raised herds of sheep and cattle. Their flocks in sum- 
mer could browse in the mountains, but in winter had to 
be driven down to the warmer pastures in the marshy 
prairies east and west of Pindos. Such has been always 
the practice of the shepherds here. They lead a 
nomadic life, moving with their lares and flocks to 
lower or to higher altitudes conformably with the re- 
quirements of the season of the year. Agriculture 
never gained any footing in the Pindos country. 
Throughout this entire region there is not a single tract 
of land that can be called a plain. Along the rivers 
and torrents there are, however, occasional slender 



THE LAND OF THE KLEPHTS 127 

strips of arable soil, which the inhabitants of today 
cultivate. 

In antiquity, as well as in modern times, these moun- 
taineers of Pindos and adjacent ranges bore different 
names, according to the section of country which they 
dwelt in, being never an undivided people. Dolopians, 
Athamans, Agrseans, and Evrytans are among the 
tribes recorded by the classical writers. Their isolated 
mode of life kept them aloof from the common affairs 
of the other Greeks. They lay off the main thorough- 
fares along which Hellenic culture marched. They 
owned no share in the progress that bloomed in the 
ambitious cities of Minyan or Dorian chivalry and 
enterprise. They were outside the pale of Hellenic life. 
Their crude customs grated harshly against the refined 
habits of the other Greeks. Thoukydides observes that 
the Evrytans used to devour meat uncooked. The 
language of these same Evrytans was almost unintel- 
ligible to men from Attika. This could easily be sur- 
mised, even without Thoukydides' express testimony 
thereto. But just in what respect their speech differed 
from the other Greek dialects is not yet determined, 
for inscriptions have not been found in sufficient num- 
ber. And as the Pindic tribes were not a people of 
monuments and records, it is probable that our igno- 
rance as to the nature of the Pindic tongues will exist 
forever. The peculiarity of their language, the strange- 
ness of their customs, and their isolation from the other 
Greeks were so conspicuous that Polybios and Strabon 
regarded them as belonging to some foreign race of 
men and as not being Hellenic. 

Being outside the world of civilization, they natu- 



%28 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

rally possessed no large cities. They lived herded to- 
gether in little towns or collections of huts. Each 
town had its small fort, on the top of some rock, suffi- 
ciently strong to protect the inhabitants against those 
of rival towns. Along and near the high banks of the 
Acheloos, the remains of such fortresses are quite 
numerous, showing that these western ridges of Pindos 
must have been thickly populated. It is probable that 
the Acheloan mountaineers were owners also of the 
nearer marsh-lands of northern Akarnania. Since the 
entire country is one of great natural strength, fortifi- 
cations against enemies from a distance were not much 
needed. Every mountain peak was a natural fortress 
for defense against the rare invader. 

Except the dilapidated walls of the rudely con- 
structed but strong little fortresses of rough-cut stone 
that protected the various settlements, the only other 
notable remains of antiquity here are the numerous 
cemeteries. These, as well as the citadels, prove that 
the mountains were well inhabited, and also like the 
citadels, indicate the localities where the ancient towns 
were situated. It is by the exploitation of these ceme- 
teries chiefly that our knowledge of the ancient life 
in these high regions may possibly be increased. But 
the simple utensils and objects of art or cult found in 
such graves as have already been examined do not 
afford brilliant hopes for the discovery of many signifi- 
cant truths through this method of investigation. The 
Pindic tribes were certainly of great antiquity. Do- 
lopians are named in the Homeric songs. The aged 
pedagogue Phoenix, in recounting the vicissitudes of his 
life to the hero Achilles, who had once been his pupil, 



THE LAND OF THE KLEPHTS 129 

recalls the time when he came as a fugitive to the 
palace of Achilles' father, and being received into 
favor, was appointed to be ruler over the land of the 
Dolopians. 

When the other nations of Greece began to wane, 
the Pindic tribes became more prominent. As civili- 
zation gradually weakened the physical condition of 
the other Greeks, the rude men of the mountains, whose 
strength was yet primeval, began to take a hand in the 
affairs of common weal. In the wars occasioned by the 
various invasions which began at the commencement of 
the second century before Christ, these mountaineers 
took their highest place in ancient history. The Atha- 
mans reached the summit of their success and fame 
under their king Amynander, about 200 before Christ. 
One of the last great military combinations in old 
Greek energy is known as the ^Etolian League. The 
states belonging to this confederation indeed proved 
themselves to possess much warlike vigor, but were 
nevertheless of little glory to their common fatherland. 
They were among the first to further the plans of the 
Romans for interference and final conquest in the East. 
However, some of the most interesting pages of the 
last epoch of ancient history are occupied with their 
doings ; and therefore they are not to be omitted when 
the epoch-making events of the world are told in detail. 
In this ^Etolian League the mountaineers all played an 
important part. But the league exhausted the ^Etolians 
and their friends, and the mountaineers relapsed into 
their usual obscurity. It was only through the leader- 
ship of inspiration from outside that they had acquired 
a short significance in ancient history, and as soon as 



130 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

that inspiration failed, they shrank back into their 
native oblivion. 

After the passing of many centuries, the denizens 
of the Pindos regions began to acquire a fresh and 
romantic prominence among the inglorious shepherds 
and peasants of the northern provinces of mediaeval 
Greece. Their country reappears on the pages of 
Hellenic history under a new name, and surrounded 
with the halo of a new and even enviable reputation. 
Some time during the late Middle Ages the term 
"agraphos," in the meaning of "unenrolled," came fre- 
quently to indicate any common man who was free 
from the obligation of paying certain poll taxes to the 
owners of the soil, and was not bound servilely to 
perform a certain amount of unremunerated manual 
labor every year in the fields or houses of these land- 
lords. The "unenrolled" inhabitant was, in other 
words, a free man, while the "grammenoi" or "re- 
corded" glebes were slaves, either fully or partially. 
Now in those days a portion of the Pindic territory 
began to be known under the name of "Agrapha," or 
"Agraphochoria," which means "the unenrolled town- 
ships," whose inhabitants were men unshackled by any 
conditions peculiar to serfs or slaves. 

It is probable that the mountaineers never were 
completely subdued by the successive conquerors of 
Greece, and that from antiquity down through all the 
centuries their aerial fastnesses remained an unassail- 
able refuge-place for a stern and rather lawless kind of 
freedom. Certainly the honorable name of "Agrapha" 
could have associated itself inseparably with this 
region only after centuries of defiant life had 



THE LAND OF THE KLEPHTS 131 

caused the name to be commonly applied, and had 
proven it to be exceptionally appropriate. The name 
was not conferred by any act of government; it grew 
up spontaneously, and probably came to be common 
as early as the thirteenth century. 

It would be very interesting to possess some definite 
knowledge about the fate of this country while it was 
under the government of the Byzantine empire. We 
do not know anything in satisfactory detail about the 
relations of the Agraphiots to the other inhabitants of 
Greece. How and when they received Christianity we 
do not know. On account of their being inimically in- 
communicate with the surrounding inhabitants, they 
must have retained their old beliefs until quite late, 
down to about the end of the eighth century, at least. 
During subsequent ages numerous small monasteries 
were founded here. In the southern part of this moun- 
tain country, some three or four hours' walk beyond 
the boundaries of the region to which the name of 
Agrapha strictly belongs, stands the revered monastery 
of Prousos, which according to the local tradition was 
founded during the reign of the emperor Theophilos. 
Since this emperor died in 842, the monastery may have 
been founded before the middle of the ninth century. 
Notwithstanding the lateness of this date, it is a con- 
venient one by which to indicate the epoch at which 
the conversion of the forefathers of the Agraphiots to 
Christianity was finally completed. 

Although difficult of access from the fertile regions 
toward the east and the west, which were so frequently 
devastated by invaders and occupied by foreign colo- 
nists, the villages of Agrapha did not remain entirely 



132 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

untouched and unaffected by these inroads and migra- 
tions. 

It is true indeed that the hordes which were bent 
merely on plunder were liable to avoid ascending into 
these less remunerative mountain districts. But from 
among the foreigners who migrated into Greece with 
the intention of staying, it is very probable that some 
went up into the mountain country, and founded settle- 
ments there. In the year 995, the Bulgarian king 
Samuel marched into Greece with the avowed purpose 
of establishing colonies for his Slavs. In the Agraphiot 
country the names of several towns and of many locali- 
ties are still Slavonic. It is not incredible to think that 
these place-names are relics of the colonies which rested 
here in consequence of Samuel's enterprising inroad. 
There are also a few Ylachic names of places, showing 
that these nomadic shepherds were not without some 
slight influence in Agrapha. 

But notwithstanding this small admixture of Sla- 
vonic and other foreign blood, the Agraphiot popu- 
lation has remained Hellenic. Nevertheless the 
Agraphiots cannot possibly be pure descendants from 
the ancient dwellers in these same mountains. There 
was a continual infiltration of other Greek blood from 
the people of the plains. Agrapha, being always a 
countn- of refuge for those whose lives were at stake, 
continually kept receiving small additions to its popula- 
tion by accepting such refugees. 

Under this more interesting aspect the land rose into 
greater importance after Greece was subjected to the 
rule of the sultans, who were the most oppressive of 
all the successive masters of the land and the most in- 



THE LAND OF THE KLEPHTS 133 

human in their cruel despotism. Of all such men as fled 
to the mountains the most remarkable were the class 
known as "klephts." The klepht was usually a young 
brave who on account of some ill favor of the magis- 
trates, or pursued by the hatred of some rival, or in 
consequence of some deed of blood or violence found it 
possible to save his life in no other way than by flight. 
He went to the mountains alone, leaving his family and 
relations in his native village. The klephts lived the 
lives of robbers. But since their energies were directed 
against Turkish rulers and Turkish supporters rather 
than against the impoverished rayahs, they always en- 
joyed the sympathy and received the support of their 
fellow-countrymen, the enslaved natives. It was even 
regarded as a kind of honor to have a member of the 
family living as a klepht. Such a man would be ready 
at all times to take terrible revenge of vendetta on any- 
one who would injure or insult or disregard his rela- 
tions in the plain. Thus the family that possessed a 
klepht could always count on his bloody protection in 
the hour of need. Religion and honor, as they under- 
stood these ideas, were sacred to the klephts. Pashas, 
beys, and agas were the most desirable targets for their 
bullets. The forests and mountains of Agrapha were 
among the most noted of the klephtic haunts. 

To keep the country and especially the highways and 
mountain passes safe to a certain degree, the govern- 
ment maintained bodies of armed men called "arma- 
tols." Like the klephts the armatols had existed long 
before the country fell under Turkish dominion. Rural 
gens d'armes of this kind used to be employed in the 
mediaeval Byzantine empire, and in the Italian and 



134 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

Frankish states which had been established in the East. 
In the province of Agrapha the civil government of the 
sultan was absolutely powerless save in so far as it 
was supported at even- turn by the toupheks and 
daggers of the armatols. The management of the 
affairs of the government was practically in the hands 
of the armatol chieftains. A charter issued by Mo- 
hammed II is mentioned in history, by virtue of which 
the armatols of Agrapha were given municipal inde- 
pendence and held the exclusive right of keeping order 
in that canton. 

The prowess of the Agraphiot armatols was directed 
chiefly against the klephts who had their hiding-places 
in the cliffs and forests. In order to be equal to the 
klephts in skill and cunning, and to have adequate 
knowledge of their plans and to pursue them success- 
fully, the life led by the armatols differed but little from 
that which the klephts had chosen for themselves. In 
character the two sets of opponents differed but little 
from each other. A dissatisfied klepht would go over 
and join the armatols. and a dissatisfied armatol would 
become a klepht. Both classes had the same prominent 
virtues and the same manifold and conspicuous vices. 
All had the same chief prayer — a fighter's honorable 
death, a "good bullet, 'kalo molybi." " 

Although these outlaws and their hunters had no 
clear ideas of patriotism or fatherland, yet when the 
revolution broke out in 182 1 many of the best soldiers 
came indiscriminately from among the klephts and 
the armatols. 

It is to the credit of the Agraphiots that even during 
that most uncivilized epoch of Greek history,, the ages 



THE LAND OF THE KLEPHTS 135 

of Turkish domination, these mountaineers did not 
entirely forget the usefulness of letters. Books were 
to be found in the monasteries. A library of many 
volumes was kept by the monks of Tatarna. The 
learned Agraphiot, Anastasios Gordios, made a cata- 
logue of the books contained in it. The catalogue was 
intended for the use of Prince Nikolaos Mavrokor- 
datos. Anastasios Gordios and other worthy Agraphiot 
scholars taught grammar and rhetoric and mathematics 
to a few select pupils in a school which was maintained 
in a small monastery near the village of Gouba. The 
founder of this modest institution, and the first teacher 
in it, was Evgenios ^Etolos. The school was kept in 
successful existence for the space of one hundred and 
fifty years. It was closed at the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century. The school of Gouba was not the only 
one in Agrapha. 

During these same dark ages Agrapha produced a 
few men of education whose writings are not without 
value of some kind. The only one selected for mention 
here is the well-known Dionysios of Phourna who com- 
posed in modern Greek dialect a long treatise on the 
art of hagiography. The book was intended to be a 
practical guide to painters of ikons for religious use 
and worship. It is full of technical information which 
the author acquired by personal study and practice in 
the hagiographic ateliers of Mount Athos at a time 
when Panselenos the most inspired of all Byzantine 
limners was the directing luminary there. For the 
history of mediaeval painting Dionysios' careful trea- 
tise is now indispensable. It was written in the fifteenth 
century, but records rules of art that had been in vogue 



136 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

for a long time. For the Byzantine monks who paint 
at Mount Athos, it is still the highest authority on all 
details of technique, color, composition, and pose. 

The savage independence which the Agraphiots had 
by force of arms so long vindicated to themselves 
against all regular forms of government began to lose 
its security and prestige at the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century through the mutual jealousies of the 
chieftains of the various bands of armatols and the 
cunning of the celebrated Ali Pasha of Ioanina. And 
when a portion of the Greeks who had revolted against 
Turkey in 1821 were finally organized into an inde- 
pendent nation, the southern half of Agrapha was 
allotted to the new kingdom of Greece, while the 
northern part continued to be under Turkish sway. 
This division completed the downfall of the glory of 
Agrapha. The armatol system passed away, and the 
klephts came to be considered simply as outlawed crim- 
inals. In 1 88 1 the northern half of the canton was 
permitted to follow the happy fate of the southern half, 
and to be united to Greece. From that year exploits 
of klephtic adventure in Agrapha are heard of only in 
stories relating to the past. 

In all of Agrapha there are no wheeled vehicles. 
There is not a single thoroughfare along which a car- 
riage could be driven. The ordinary roads that join 
village to village are merely foot-paths along the tops 
of the mountain ridges or goat-trails that wind through 
the forests and rocks, ascending steep heights and 
circling down precipitous declivities. Every village is 
separated from all others by at least one mountain. A 
trip from one town to another generally demands at 



THE LAND OF THE KLEPHTS 137 

least one steep and fatiguing climb and one toilsome 
descent. The best and most passable roads are those 
which follow the courses of the streams. There is one 
well-built but ill-kept bridle path leading along the 
Agraphiotic River from the town of Agrapha to the 
mediaeval bridge of Manoles, near the monastery of 
Tatarna. In winter time most of the mountain roads 
are closed to all traffic and intercourse, as the passes 
become filled with snow. The more remote villages 
often remain without communication with the outside 
world for several months. 

Foreign travelers that visit Agrapha are very rare. 
The natives cannot understand why a stranger should 
come toiling and touring into their land. They cannot 
readily comprehend the hardihood and purposelessness 
of entering into it with the mere intention of sight- 
seeing. If they meet the traveler on one of the narrow 
paths they look at him with eyes of astonishment and 
suspicion. But when by crafty and adroit observation 
and questioning they conclude that the stranger is no 
spy who has come to do them injury and no secret 
agent of the government bent on collecting arrears of 
taxes or sent to impose new obligations, they are not 
inhospitable. They then may be prevailed upon to 
recite the traditions regarding the prowess of their 
forefathers, to tell the stories and myths connected 
with the various localities, and to point out the sites 
made infamous or glorious by deeds of blood or 
bravery. 

A few times each year the Agraphiots go down into 
the plains to sell the scanty products of their homeland. 
Those who live in the northern parts of Agrapha visit 



138 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

the markets in the Thessalic towns of Trikkala or 
Karditsa. while those who live in the southern part 
cross the outspurs of Mount Tymphrestos and descend 
into the town of Karpenesion. Cheese and butter, 
hides and wool and home-spun flannels, sheep and 
goats, are the most valuable marketable articles which 
they bring to exchange for a little money and which 
they may barter away for the produce of the cities and 
fields in the plains. A few of the villages, as Rendina 
for example, possess sufficient arable land on hill sides 
and along the streams to produce enough of maize and 
wheat for local needs. But here is no surplus for 
exportation. 

The mountaineers still adhere to the old custom of 
holding annual fairs at which they are able to dispose 
of whatever they have for sale, if they prefer not to 
go down to the distant markets. At these fairs the 
natives meet the merchants who come up from the sur- 
rounding towns. The habit of disposing of their goods 
at fairs was instituted in mediaeval times and long 
remained in favor because it was not without serious 
risk of life and imminent probability of being robbed 
that the mountaineers could travel along the lonely 
roads to and from the far-off markets. The most pop- 
ular of all these fairs is the one which takes place every 
year in the month of September near the monaster}* of 
Tatarna in a beautiful little valley on the left bank of 
the Acheloos river. A level tract of sand and grassy 
loam stretches along the side of the water, affording a 
comfortable and picturesque camping ground for the 
thousands that come to the fair. They bring their 
goods to these fairs on pack horses and donkeys. 



THE LAND OF THE KLEPHTS 139 

The Agraphiots although living in circumstances so 
straightened and so resourceless never succumb to their 
poverty. They are really a contented people. No com- 
plaints are heard, no bewailing of their fate. It is 
common however for each family to send one of its 
brightest young men abroad, to Constantinople or to 
some other center of business and mercantile struggle, 
where, using the savings of his parents and brothers 
as capital, he invests in some kind of commercial enter- 
prise and after ten or fifteen years returns with a 
goodly sum of honest gainings which are then justly 
distributed among the members of the family, and the 
betraveled son takes some neighbor's daughter and 
settles down to married life in his native village. 

The Agraphiots of today are a people of patience 
and bravery and manly strength. They are perhaps in 
many ways the most attractive and sympathetic in- 
habitants of northern Greece. 



THE VALE OF TEMPE 

"Je cueille les laur'xers des Delphes 
et je goute les delices de Tempe." 

Our admiration for mountains and streams and 
dales is often occasioned by our respect for events that 
happened in these places and associated them forever 
with our ideas of beauty or glory. Accordingly, not 
always is the superbest natural scenery the best known 
and the most praised. If no soul-stirring deeds of men 
enchant and haunt the loftiest cliffs, the traveler may 
pass them by with undisturbed disregard, conceiving 
them to be simply massive heaps of discolored rocks. 
Human appreciation of nature's handiwork sometimes 
depends on subjective motives, and then conforms 
with the preconceptions of the observer. The lovers of 
nature disagree as seriously as do the devotees of art. 
Few are the landscapes which are universally known to 
people of culture, and still fewer those which are 
universally admired. To this limited class of magnifi- 
cent exceptions possibly belongs the vale of Tempe. 

With later writers of classic antiquity Tempe came 
to be axiomatically considered as a place of exemplary 
beauty. And modern literature, which, without ques- 
tioning, has accepted so much from the judgment and 
imagination of remote generations, has adopted this 
traditional opinion regarding Apollon's favorite glen. 
But Tempe is probably worthy of its many ages of 
undisputed fame, and will continue in the future as in 
the past to receive the homage of poet and nature-lover. 

140 



THE VALE OF TEMPE 141 

The old Greeks seldom described natural scenery. 
They seem almost to have lacked the ability by artistic 
word-painting on the written page to produce for the 
reader an accurate picture of actually existing land- 
scapes. Tempe is frequently named with admiration, 
and some of its significant features are enumerated by 
the foremost writers of both Greece and Rome. But 
their descriptions, with the exception of those made by 
historians, who refer to the strategic and military im- 
portance of the high and narrow defile, are merely 
incidental and nearly always fantastical. For of all 
these writers ^Elian, the rhetorician, is the only one 
who professedly undertook to describe minutely and 
copiously the impressive grandeur of Tempe. 

Mythological associations, the names and deeds of 
river-gods and heroes and nymphs and deities float into 
every conception of Tempe. No light and superficial 
study would be adequate to determine whether it was 
the previously existing myths that fixed the attention 
of the old inhabitants of Thessaly upon the fascinating 
beauties of Tempe, or whether an appreciative con- 
sciousness of the superb fitness of the place did not 
occasion the localizing of the myths there. 

To understand Tempe, a knowledge of the sur- 
rounding country must precede. Just west of the vale 
stretches out the broad, long, and level Thessalian 
plain, the most extensive in Greece. On all sides the 
plain is well hemmed in by a high border of mountains. 
Along the east side, where the province of Thessaly 
extends to the sea, the historic mountain range whose 
three most prominent peaks are known under the im- 
mortal names of Pelion and Ossa and Olympos lies 



142 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

between the plain and the rock-fenced sea. For the 
floods of water which the mountain torrents throw 
down into this vast Thessalian basin there is but one 
chief outlet, the Peneios River, which flows into the 
sea between Olympos and Ossa through the gorge or 
valley of Tempe. In ages remote indeed, but yet not 
entirely beyond the dim memory of tradition, this 
spacious plain was not dry land, but a lake of fresh 
water, bordered on all sides by the surrounding moun- 
tains; and at a still earlier geological period it was a 
great gulf of the iEgean Sea. In those days the gorge 
of Tempe was in the process of being created. The 
Peneios did not yet roll its waters through it, but at a 
place where now stands the curious eroded rocks of 
Meteora, fifty miles or more westward from this later 
gorge, tumbled them down from the Pindos Mountains 
into the gulf. Some oft-repeated action of nature 
gradually elevated and isolated the bed of the gulf so 
that it ceased to be a portion of the sea, and became a 
lake of fresh water. Then other violent convulsions 
of the earth, aiding and hastening the action of the 
water, tore an opening through the saddle of rock 
which connected Olympos and Ossa; and the liberated 
waters of the lake ran on into the sea, leaving Thessaly 
a vast and fertile alluvial plain. 

Obscure knowledge of this former condition of 
Thessaly was kept in various local myths, wherein the 
phenomena were explained by the belief that some 
god's power had once rent the rocks that girdled the 
waters in. The divinity which according to old Greek 
beliefs was the chief agent in causing disturbances of 
this kind was the sea-god Poseidon, who, on account of 



THE VALE OF TEMPE 143 

his seismic strength, bore the special title of the "earth- 
shaker." To him did the Thessalians most often 
ascribe the creation of the breach, by splitting it out 
with a stroke of his trident. Other mythists preferred 
to add to the stories of the prodigious deeds that were 
performed by another mythological man of strength, 
the hero Herakles, and ascribed to him the pushing 
apart of the two mountains with his hands. 

The gorge is in some places so narrow and its sides 
so high and straight that the beholder may be able to 
imagine how it could be walled up artificially, the 
waters of the Peneios stopped, and the plain of Thes- 
saly again converted into an inland sea. This is the 
plan that suggested itself to Xerxes, the king of Persia, 
when, on his way to conquer Greece, he sailed over 
from his camp in Therme in a Sidonian bark to visit 
the vale of Tempe. He thought that if the Thessalians 
had not voluntarily submitted themselves to his power, 
he could easily have overcome and enslaved them by 
closing Tempe and flooding the entire plain. 

Tempe is not only the great outlet of the plain, but 
is also the chief and easiest road from Thessaly into 
Makedonia and other countries north. By going 
through this breach the traveler from Thessaly can 
get outside of the mountain ranges, and then, by 
traversing the narrow valleys that lie along the coast 
between the mountains and the sea, can reach the coun- 
try round Thessalonike. It has often been a place of 
defense against invading armies. 

Tempe is most easily approached from the west, by 
way of Bolos and Larisa. From Larisa an ill-kept 
wagon-road leads across the marshy plain to the mouth 



144 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

of the gorge. This is the road which after passing 
through Tempe goes on to Thessalonike and Constanti- 
nople. In approaching Tempe by this way,, the gran- 
deur and grace of the mountains in front, especially of 
Olympos. appear to increase at even- step. The de- 
pression between the outspurs of Olympos and of Ossa 
is plainly seen from the hill of Larisa. But even from 
much nearer the uninformed eye would not be ready 
to believe that there is an opening so low as to admit 
the waters of the Peneios. The wa°fon-track leads in 
a straight line across the plain, while the river, after 
flowing past Larisa. bends slightly to the north, and 
cannot be seen from the road until, after nearing the 
gorge, its waters bend south again so as to find their 
egress through the pass. 

The gorge does not begin nor end abruptly. For 
most of its length it is quite narrow; but it opens out 
at either extremity into fan-shaped valleys. It is 
today a very lonely place. Probably it has always 
been such. The extensive tracts of wild and almost 
impassable mountain wastes on either side, but es- 
pecially in the Olympian region to the north, are still 
the haunts of various kinds of game. In the Middle 
Ages there stood near the mouth of the defile a town 
called Lykostomon, or "Wolf's Mouth." The same 
name was applied also to the pass itself, and seems to 
have been in vogue for a thousand years down to the 
last century. The cavernous slopes of Olympos seem 
to have been a favorite gathering-place for these de- 
structive animals ; and even yet the neighboring country 
is not free from them. 

From the hamlet of Baba, where the defile begins, to 



THE VALE OF TEMPE 145 

the ruined bridge at its eastern embouchure, the dis- 
tance is a walk of about an hour and a half. The road 
keeps along the south bank of the river. In many- 
places the cleft was originally no wider than the river. 
And the road in these narrower necks has been hewn 
out from the overhanging cliffs of Ossa. Only on 
the Ossa side was the construction of a road compara- 
tively easy. On the Olympian side the cliffs of solid 
stone rise in many places straight up from the water 
of the river to a height of several hundred feet. But 
even along the foot of the rocks of Olympos there are 
occasionally little nooks of level land. In each of 
these sequestered spots some solitary miller or fisher- 
man has taken up his abode. His lonely life recalls 
that of the mediaeval hermits, who, moved by a differ- 
ent longing after tranquillity and freedom from care, 
suspended their ascetic cells in caves along the perpen- 
dicular cliffs of Olympos. How it was possible for 
these odd-souled men to reach their aerial dens is a 
complete mystery to the beholder who strains his neck 
to gaze up at these dizzy heights. But that by some 
way or other their lofty retreats could be reached is 
proven from the fact that among these same caves there 
are a few which, being now, as in the days of Virgil's 
Aristseus, occupied by wild bees, are periodically visited 
by venturesome honey-gatherers. People here hold 
their life at a cheap price when some attractive danger 
invites them to be foolhardy. 

In ancient times when traffic by sea was not so easy 
as it now is, traveling through Tempe may have been 
more frequent than it is today. In many places, where 
the road lies upon the smoother surface of the natural 



146 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

rock, two deep furrows about three feet distant from 
each other are still to be seen. These are the ruts that 
were worn into the rock by the cars and chariots of 
Greeks and Romans who for centuries wheeled along 
this military and mercantile road. To the Romans 
who came seeking conquest in these parts, Tempe was 
a valuable military post. It was frequently utilized in 
their wars against the Makedonian kings, and against 
such tribes of the northern Greeks as at times lifted 
up the sword of patriot against the western invaders. 
It is also mentioned in the civil wars of Rome that were 
so fiercely decided by mighty battles fought on Hel- 
lenic soil. When the irresistible Caesar followed his 
powerful but unfortunate rival Pompey into Thessaly, 
he sent in advance the lieutenant Longinus to fortify 
and hold the defile of Tempe. Close by the road 
through the gorge is an almost obliterated Latin in- 
scription which the natives here being unable to 
decipher and understand have thought to be a "salt 
list," as they call it, in which is recorded the fixed re- 
muneration given to the laborers who were compelled 
by corvee service to construct the road. What the 
inscription really states is that this lieutenant of Caesar 
fortified the pass ; "Cassius Longinus pro. cos. Tempe 
munivit." 

It was through Tempe that Pompey escaped from 
Thessaly after the total defeat of his hosts of Romans, 
Greeks, and barbarians on the world-famed battlefield 
of Pharsalos. Ploutarch in his life of this proud and 
unfortunate hero tells of how the defeated chieftain, 
deserted by all his followers, fled from the field of 
defeat to the city of Larisa and from there to the vale 



THE VALE OF TEMPE 147 

of Tempe, where, overcome by thirst, he climbed down 
to the river, threw himself on his face, and drank of 
its flood. Then he stood up again, and passing on foot 
through the gorge, went down to the sea. There he 
found a vessel that bore him to Egypt, where, instead 
of retrieving his misfortunes, he was to lose his life 
by a traitor's hand. 

About midway in the pass the rocky wall of Ossa 
is cleft by a colossal opening, up the sides of which it 
is possible to climb toward the top of the mountain. 
On the summit of one of the peaks that overhang this 
side-gorge, several hundred feet higher than the road 
by the river, are the ruins of an old Byzantine forti- 
fication, one of the proofs that the pass was guarded 
in the Middle Ages. These ruins, like similar ones in 
other parts of Greece, are in popular lore and in the 
songs of the peasants and shepherds called the "Castle 
of the Maiden Fair," and are associated with a story 
about a beautiful lady who lived safe within the walls 
of her impregnable chateau until a Turkish robber 
gained entrance disguised as a needy woman and then 
opened its gates to his ambushed companions. 

The water of the Peneios is somewhat muddy be- 
cause of its long course through the soft-soiled plains 
of Thessaly. Its color is in charming contrast with the 
varied hues of plants and rocks that line its banks. 
Luxuriant trees overhang the silvery stream. Climbing 
plants and vines wind up among the trees. Smilax and 
ivy fasten themselves against the rocky cliffs of the 
gorge. Great plane trees shoot heavy branches out 
over the waters of the river as if to inhale and imbibe 
the sunny moisture more lustily. Many of the trees 



148 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

stand even within the calmer waters along the borders 
of the stream. Every available space is teeming in 
exuberant confusion with trees and bushes and plants. 
Underneath the narrow strip of earth and rock that 
constitutes the road, numerous crystal springs gurgle 
out into the duller-colored Peneios. Their clear water 
wanders down for some distance in the larger stream 
before finally becoming commingled with the murkier 
flood. No wonder that the best songs of the wild 
nightingales are still to be heard in such a place. 

On acount of the narrowness of the pass, the silence 
that often reigns there, the gigantic overhanging moun- 
tains with their solid sides mangled and torn by seismic 
convulsions, the heavy shades cast by the cliffs, the 
slow majesty of the river, the insecure loneliness of the 
defile, the vale is a place of indescribably luring 
grandeur. And were it not that this more somber 
aspect of Tempe is wonderfully softened and toned by 
the vegetation and water, it would be regarded more as 
a place of oppressive savageness than of most gra- 
ciously mingled beauty and magnificence. 

But only under the spell of ancient memories is 
Tempe to be enjoyed to its fullest. The sacred char- 
acter of the grove animated its beauty. Tempe was a 
holy place. The religious rites that were in vogue 
here, and the mythic occurrences that were recalled 
in its shady recesses tended to lessen the awfulness of 
the scenery. The deity whose exploits were most 
hallowed here was Apollon. Here he fell in love with 
the nymph Daphne. But Daphne, a rustic and free 
daughter of the river, had no desire to surrender her- 
self to Apollon ; and in order to escape his too earnest 



THE VALE OF TEMPE 149 

wooings preferred to be metamorphosed by her father's 
magic art into a bush of laurel. Apollon, in memory 
of the maiden whom he could not win, adopted as his 
sacred emblem the beautiful species of tree into which 
she had been marvelously transformed. 

After Apollon, as god of prophecy, had chosen 
Delphi on the slopes of Parnasos to be his sanctuary, 
to Tempe he came in order to purify himself by its 
waters from the stains of violence which he had in- 
curred by slaying the pythonic monster which had tried 
to prevent him from establishing his Delphic shrine. 
And after this ceremonial purification, breaking twigs 
from his favorite tree of daphne, he twisted them into 
a wreath round his head, and with this as a crown of 
victory he returned to Delphi. Thus did the daphne- 
tree, the poetic laurel, become holy on Parnasos. 
And in memory thereof the prizes given to the victors 
in the gymnic and poetic contests, which used to take 
place whenever the great Apollonian festivals were 
celebrated at Delphi, consisted of a chaplet woven 
from daphnic laurel brought by special envoys from 
Tempe to the place of the contests. The envoys, all 
of whom were young men, led by one whose parents 
were still alive, came to Tempe and after the offering 
of sacrifices at altars in the grove, cut the sprays of 
laurel, and with great ceremony carried them back 
along the Pythiad road to Delphi. 

Daphne-trees, the noble laurels which furnished such 
befitting crowns for poets and youths who aspired 
to handsome deeds, do not now grow in plenty along 
the sacred stream of Apollon and in his sacred grove. 
His swans no longer float on the rippling waves under 



150 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the plane trees, and among the tangled bushes. The 
songs of high and gentle culture were hushed ages 
ago in these re-ensavaged regions. The wild songs of 
the klephts that in later centuries were attuned to hopes 
for freedom on Ossa's slopes and in Olympos' caves 
were dearer to Ares, the patron of bloody struggles, 
than to Apollon, the spirit of civilization. So far as 
the deeds of man have contributed to hallow Tempe, 
there are now no notable remains in the grove. Only 
in the souls of those who know the old lore, who unite 
into one great eternity the choice acts of all the ages, 
do the memories that hang among the cliffs of Tempe 
still possess reality. 



THE THESSALIC PLAIN 

The country which bears the name of Thessaly in- 
cludes within its limits the most extensive sweeps of 
level land in all Greece. It is a natural basin whose 
fertile alluvial floor was once the bottom of a lake, and 
whose sides are high rows of mountains. From the 
Othrys range which is the southern limit of Thessaly, 
a long low spur of hills reaches northward over the 
level expanse, dividing it into two parts. The western 
division, which is the larger one, stretches out in un- 
interrupted flatness as far as to the foot of the Pindos 
Mountains which border Thessaly in the direction of 
the setting sun. The eastern portion is divided into 
three smaller districts which are named after the cities 
which they nourish, and are called the plains of 
Halmyros, of Bolos, and of Larisa. 

Geological observation clearly proves that no incon- 
siderable portion of Thessaly was permanently under 
water in Ogygian times. In those days there was no 
adequate egress for the floods of rain and melting snow 
which came down into the plain from the mountains 
all around. But some action of nature, either gradual 
or violent, finally cut an opening through the saddle 
of rock which once held Olympos and Ossa together, 
and through this opening the accumulated waters of 
Thessaly found a passage to the ^Egean Sea. This 
pass is the renowned vale of Tempe, through which 
the Peneios River flows. This river, which is one of 
the widest and fullest of all the Grecian streams, takes 

151 



152 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

its start from springs in the Lakmon and Pindos 
Mountains and flows eastward across the plain. On 
its way it receives the waters of most of the other 
rivers that drain the valleys of Thessaly and the inner 
slopes of its periphery of mountains. During the drier 
seasons of the year the Peneios is a gentle, steady- 
flowing, heavy-looking stream. But when copious 
rains or sudden thaws take place on the near moun- 
tains, then the Peneios swells and 'widens, overflowing 
its low banks and changing the near-lying prairies into 
stagnant seas. Thus even down to our own day come 
frequent though less-noted repetitions of that ancient 
flood which according to one form of the story took 
place when Devkalion was king. In this deluge all the 
inhabitants were drowned, except Devkalion and his 
consort Pyrrha. 

Notwithstanding the sluggishness of the Peneios 
and its tributaries there are only two lakes in all of 
Thessaly. Xenias is a body of deep and crystal water 
in a sunken portion of the tableland which lies in the 
southwest corner of Thessaly near the junction of the 
Pindos and the Othrys Mountains. Its overflow winds 
off through the hills at the foot of Pindos until it 
reaches the plain. Thence it crawls on to the Peneios. 
The other lake is now called Karla and in ancient 
times was known as the "Bcebean." It lies under the 
sloping sides of Pelion. It never becomes dry because 
the bed of the Peneios is higher than the bottom of 
the lake. Insignificant are the ruins of ancient Bcebe. 
the town which in classic antiquity stood by the lake. 
Likewise few are the vestiges of the mediaeval town of 
Karla. Both are succeeded bv a fishermen's settlement 



THE THESSALIC PLAIN 153 

called Kanalia. Unlike Xenias, the lake of Karla is 
marshy and malarious. It abounds in eels and fishes 
which the men of Kanalia gather and send off to the 
markets of the surrounding towns. 

The deep alluvial soil of Thessaly is notably pro- 
ductive. In verse and in prose did ancient fame record 
its fertility. The country round about Halmyros, 
which in antiquity bore the name of "the Krokian 
Fields," produces today a variety of tobacco which is 
eagerly purchased at the highest prices in the great 
markets of Egypt and the Levant. In the lower lands 
remunerative rice plantations have been established 
during these later years. Likewise successful attention 
has been devoted to the production of the sugar-beet 
and to the manufacture of sugar. In proper season 
the level plain waves with vast fields of wheat or corn 
or tobacco. The mountains are covered with luxurious 
vines which bear in season their most lusciously tinted 
colossal clusters of fruit. The warm and protected 
slopes upon the long sides of Pelion, besides producing 
such crops and vegetables and fruits as grow in the 
plain, are diversified with olive groves and with or- 
chards of oranges and citrons. Great droves of cattle, 
beautiful horses of ancient breed, and buffalos, which 
some of the natives use as drag-beasts for their 
Hesiodic ploughs and wooden carts, pasture in the 
marshy meadows. Flocks of countless sheep and goats 
browse in the mountains during the summer and are 
brought down into the warmer lowlands on the ap- 
proach of winter. In a word, Thessaly if properly 
governed and cared for would be one of the richest 
and most productive countries in this part of the world. 



154 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

The peculiar fertility of these lands has had con- 
siderable influence upon the history of Thessaly and 
the countries south of it. In prehistoric and early 
historic times there took place a number of migrations 
from more northern countries into the land which 
later became known as Greece. Most of these wander- 
ing hordes entered the more southern parts of Greece 
by way of Thessaly, and most of them made their first 
settlement here, staying until driven farther by some 
subsequent and less enervated tribe. Some of these 
hordes entered Thessaly from the northeast by passing 
through the defiles near Olympos, and others came 
from the northwest through the passes over the Pindos, 
from Epeiros. They settled round the edge of the 
plain so as to have the advantage of both lowland and 
hill. Each horde of immigrants remained in possession 
of the country and its prized resources of pasturage 
and the chase until forced to give up their lands to 
fresh and stronger bands of invaders and to flee farther 
south. Thus did these successive fugitive and migra- 
tory tribes that lived for an indefinite period of time 
in Thessaly gradually come to occupy a good portion 
of all Greece. Thessaly may be regarded as the cradle 
of much that goes to make up what we call classic 
Hellenism. All the tribes that had once lived in Thes- 
saly never forgot the great mountain of Olympos 
which rises so majestically at the northeast corner of 
the plain. They never ceased to hold it in their 
memory as the cloud-hidden home of their greatest 
and common gods. True indeed many of the old tra- 
ditions and myths extend back to a time prior to the 
occupation of Thessaly by these Hellenic tribes, or even 



THE THESSALIC PLAIN 155 

were brought into Greece not through Thessaly at all, 
being from beyond the seas, from Egypt or the East ; 
but such transmarine traditions were the property of 
only a portion of the Greeks, while Thessalian Olympos 
and its deities became common property and a subject 
of common pride. 

Most indications point to the probability of the 
belief that Greece was originally peopled by wanderers 
who came overland from Europe rather than by sea- 
farers who would have come by boats from Asia or 
Egypt or the islands. Those who entered Greece from 
Makedonia and Thrake by way of the passes round 
Olympos may have been the first to come and settle in 
this peninsula. Of these Makedonian and Thrakic 
tribes there were kept in story many interesting frag- 
ments of lore. To these tribes belonged the peoples 
who once dwelt at the foot of Olympos and round the 
town of Arne in Thessaly, and there worshiped the 
Pierian goddesses, until driven away by other bands of 
invaders into Thessaly they migrated farther south, 
took up their home in Bceotia, and established on the 
green slopes of Helikon the Pierian worship of these 
same nine goddesses, the Muses. 

It is not necessary to mention all the tribes known 
or suspected to have come into Thessaly from Epeiros 
across the Pindos Mountains. But among these tribes 
was that of the "Hellenes," which after coming into 
Greece became so prominent that its name in time 
became the common appellation for all Greeks. It is 
not probable that the Hellenes were the first tribe that 
came into Thessaly from Epeiros, but we cannot easily 
name any other earlier Epeirotic people which under- 



156 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

took this migration. With them the Hellenes brought 
into Thessaly and later into all Greece a reverence for 
the great god of the Epeirotic peoples, the oracular 
Zevs of Dodona. The cult of Dodonsean Zevs and 
the bare- footed priests who ministered at his shrine 
are mentioned by Achilles in the Iliad. But although 
Zevs of Dodona was a potent god, and his cult was 
revered in the influential tribe which imposed its name 
on all the Greeks, nevertheless this special cult never 
was accepted as popular and never became common 
everywhere in Greece. 

In the course of time there came down into Thessaly 
a new and wild and haughty tribe from Epeiros. 
These were the Thessals. They were not entire 
strangers to the tribes which had preceded them. In 
fact they were kinsmen to their predecessors. The 
peoples which they found holding possession of the 
land were either driven off into a more southern 
province of Greece like all previous streams of invad- 
ers, or else were kept by the conquerors as a sub- 
servient and despised class of enslaved serfs. The 
Thessals were a strong and warlike race and quickly 
obtained the mastery of the country. Once in posses- 
sion they never lost it, in ancient times. From them 
the country received and kept its known name of 
"Thessaly." At the time when the Homeric poems 
were written the Thessals were not yet in this country, 
but were still living in their Epeirotic fatherland. The 
plains of the Peneios had possessed no general and 
common appellation before the Thessals came. Some 
localities had borne the name of the tribes which lived 
in them; while other places had received some name 



THE THESSALIC PLAIN 157 

suggested by the physical appearance and natural char- 
acteristics of the country. 

Many of the myths of Greece and some of its most 
primitive history originated in the eastern and south- 
ern parts of Thessaly. In eastern Thessaly, the giants 
in their rebellion and war against the gods tried to 
reach the top of Olympos and gain entrance to its 
celestial abodes by piling Pelion upon Ossa and using 
as a scaling ladder the united heights of the two moun- 
tains. On and round Pelion lived the Centaurs, and 
near them lived their enemies the Lapiths. On Pelion 
took place the wedding feast of Perithous the Lapith 
king, to which the Centaurs had been invited. The 
wedding feast which gradually converted itself into a 
murderous combat between the Lapiths and their rude 
guests has been often a fruitful theme for sculpture 
as well as for poetry. In this part of Thessaly was 
Pherae where lived Alkestis, the queen who so loved 
the king Admetos that she gave herself to Thanatos 
the god of death and by dying in place of Admetos 
caused her royal husband to be allowed to live on and 
enjoy the span of years which Thanatos took from her 
life and transferred to his. 

This same town of Pherae, which, during these later 
centuries when Turkish tyrants held all Greece in 
bondage, after losing its ancient name took a new one 
from the alien language of foreign settlers and was 
called Belestino, has been honored by another distinc- 
tion almost worthy to rival that which was attached 
to it by the boundless devotion of Alkestis. It was the 
home of the poet and patriot Rhegas who before the 
outburst of the war for freedom composed patriot 



158 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

songs to inspire and encourage his countrymen, and 
died a martyr's death to give a beginning to the 
struggle for liberty. One or two of his songs are still 
known by every schoolboy of Greece. 

That the oldest myths of Thessaly were localized 
chiefly along the seaside of the country, and especially 
round about that magnificent opening into the ^Egean 
waters, the noble harbor-gulf of Pagae, would render 
not incredible the conviction of some new scholars 
that many Thessalic myths were brought here in ships 
from across the seas. If they actually were imported 
by way of the waters, their origin and provenance can- 
not yet be determined easily. Nevertheless it is not 
hard to find motives for believing that colonizers from 
Krete, or some other eastern country came hither and, 
settling round this gulf, planted some of these well- 
fated traditions. 

The Gulf of Pagae is the largest of Greece. When 
the Makedonian kings became masters here, they held 
high esteem for the mercantile and military impor- 
tance of this harbor. Demetrios the "town-taker" 
founded a new city on its shores, and made himself 
eponymous to it. This town grew populous and pros- 
perous, and continued to be rich and active until Arab 
pirates led by the renegade Damian plundered and 
devastated it, 896 years after Christ. The modern city 
which is today the successor of mythic Iolkos and 
prosperous Demetrias and the other flourishing places 
that formerly were here, is the new-built Bolos. The 
exact site of Bolos has indeed been inhabited for 
centuries, from the time when Thessaly was yet a 
domain of mediaeval Constantinople. The Byzantine 



THE THESSALIC PLAIN 159 

castle which stood until a few years ago bore witness 
to the oldness of mediaeval Bolos. But under Turkish 
control it was merely a slovenly and sickly wharfing- 
place for the small craft which plied into its port. Its 
prosperity dates only from the annexation of Thessaly 
to Greece, which happened in 1881. 

Just as it is not probable that the earliest incomers 
into Thessaly came from over the seas, so also is it 
unlikely that all of the cities that prospered here in 
primitive times were along this Gulf of Pagse. At 
least in later centuries, along the west border of Thes- 
saly near to the foot of Pindos and along the north 
boundary near to the Kambounian range and by the 
shores of the Peneios there were populous towns. That 
these were very old settlements is evident. But they 
never came into close and influential relationship with 
outlying countries and therefore always remained un- 
historic. Not far distant from Pindos was the town of 
Trikka which was sufficiently ancient to be mentioned 
by the troubadours of the Iliad. Here was the native 
place of the two leeches that accompanied the Achaeans 
against Troy. That they were healers of some skill 
is true. Otherwise their names would never have so 
honorably found a place in the Iliad's songs. But one 
could, perhaps, find that Podaleirios and Machaon 
were more like savage medicine-men than like modern 
physicians. Perhaps they were not complete strangers 
to the arts of witchcraft and sorcery, and used charms 
and spells in their healings. At least Thessaly was a 
favorite home of witchcraft. Especially noted were the 
Thessalic women for their proficiency in all kinds of 
magic. It is interesting to note that Goethe in his 



160 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

Faust sets some of his thaumaturgic scenes in Thessaly. 
There exists a most extraordinary and jolly story 
composed in Hellenistic times which describes an ad- 
venturesome youth who resolved to go to Thessaly for 
the purpose of seeing marvels and prodigies. A flying 
man, or even a human being just undergoing conver- 
sion into stone, were among the most insignificant 
sights he expected to witness from the art of the 
Thessalian hags. Perhaps he might chance to see them 
bring the moon down from the sky; for this act was 
reputed to be within their power. His expectations 
were more than realized, but not exactly in accordance 
with what would have been his own choice. For, hav- 
ing in a moment of too great confidence consented to be 
momentarily turned into a donkey, the magician who 
performed the metamorphosis forgot to provide for his 
speedy return to human shape. And the adventures 
of asinal Loukios while under his guise of donkey 
were most ludicrously pitiable. 

Northwest of Trikka, in the farthest corner of 
Thessaly, is the small town of Kalambaka. In the 
Middle Ages Kalambaka was an episcopal see. The 
number of bishoprics in Byzantiac Thessaly was 
notably large, as one can learn from the pages 
of Le Quien. The cathedral of Kalambaka is still 
well preserved, although it was built not less than 
six hundred years ago. Just back of Kalambaka 
stand the strange natural columns on top of which are 
the yet stranger Meteora monasteries. How mediaeval 
men succeeded in first climbing to the top of these 
wonderful natural pedestals and in building their 
abodes upon them is a curious question. Monks and 



THE THESSALIC PLAIN 161 

visitors now ascend by hanging ladders or by being 
placed in a net and hauled up by a windlass. In the 
troublous days of foreign despotism and the prevalence 
of brigandage it was not entirely bad fortune to be a 
monk and dwell in ease and comparative security on 
top of those pinnacles of nature. Among the noted 
men who here lived a life of asceticism was the last 
Romseic king of Thessaly, Urosch Palaeolog, who be- 
came a Meteoran monk, and was appointed abbot, 
after an end had been made to his kingdom by the 
terrible Bajazet. 

Although Thessaly took a very early start in Hel- 
lenic civilization, as is proven not only by the myths 
but also by the remains of ancient citadels and tombs 
and other antiquities, yet this country did not keep 
steady pace in the procession of progress, and in 
historic times was left far behind by other portions of 
Greece. Thessaly remained at a standstill while the 
cities of Ionia and Attika and most of the Peloponnesos 
were ever advancing. Thessaly became in some way 
isolated from the movement that carried the other 
Greeks along and kept them in touch, either friendly 
or antagonistic, with each other. When Athens was 
at the height of her splendor, under Themistokles and 
Perikles, the Thessal men were regarded as semi- 
barbarous. They had no close bond with the rest of 
Greece. They were not even united among themselves. 
Each large city, as for example Larisa and Pherae, had 
its own tagos or tyrant, and its own magnates. Among 
these tyrants there at times existed a kind of confed- 
eration. And some of them might have longed for a 
"united Thessaly." 



162 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

In a country like Thessaly it is frequently the case 
that a wide chasm separates the rich from the poor. It 
was so here in ancient days when most of the laborers 
were glebe-bound serfs, and the rich were landed lords. 
So is it in Thessaly yet today. Among the rich old 
tyrants of long ago was Skopas who ruled from his 
fortress in the town of Krannon. His fame lasts down 
to our times, not because of any deeds of his but be- 
cause one of the mightiest lyric poets of the classic 
age, in a great triumphal ode, sang the wealth and 
power of Skopas and his offspring. 

The inhabitants of one Thessalian city saw no shame 
or inhumanity in capturing the inhabitants of another 
and selling them as slaves. The town of Pagasae on 
the gulf was one of the most widely known slave 
markets. The serf -like inhabitants of the country dis- 
tricts today live in small settlements on the lands of 
their lords, dwelling in huts built sometimes of stone, 
but more frequently of mud bricks, or of osiers daubed 
over with mortar of mud. These houses oftenest are 
but one story high. The floor is the natural one of 
mother earth. Each house often contains an apart- 
ment for the other farm animals that are of a lower 
status than the serfs. Groups of such houses are called 
by the Turkish name of tsiflik. It seems that this 
tsiflik system was first introduced by the Turks, at 
least in its present form. The Greek landlords who 
now own the country have not yet found in their 
hearts sufficient love for their degraded countrymen 
to better their condition at some personal sacrifice. 
The tsiflik-men pay all taxes and till the fields, keeping 



THE THESSALIC PLAIN 163 

a fixed portion of the products for their sustenance 
and wages. 

On account of their greater isolation from the other 
Hellenes, their sense of a wider patriotism was but 
imperfectly developed. When the Persian army of 
Xerxes came into Greece, the Thessal lords took sides 
with the invader against their Hellenic kinsmen and 
fellow-countrymen. Their conduct was partially ex- 
cused by the fact that the other Greeks did not take 
proper measures to defend the pass of Tempe against 
Xerxes. The concern of the Peloponnesians and 
Athenians was directed more to the southern portions 
of Greece, where their own homes and firesides were. 
For a short time indeed a detachment from the com- 
mon army of defense had occupied Tempe, but retired 
before Xerxes reached it. But even after their country 
was thus laid open to the invader's mercy, not all of 
the Thessalians embraced the cause of the invader, 
who apparently was destined to be a conqueror. The 
opulent lords and the aristocrats "medized," but the 
other free inhabitants of democratic sentiments were 
in favor of resistance. 

In the fourth century before Christ, Philip of 
Makedon came seeking conquests in Greece. Among 
the earliest to fall under his power were the Thes- 
salians. Here he gained his first foothold within 
Greece proper. Here he appointed over the various 
cities men who were in favor of his projects, and from 
here he in time became master of all the country. 

When the great strife between Latinism and Hellen- 
ism began, Thessaly was the scene of a good part of 
the struggle. At least one great battle was fought 



164 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

here, in which the Roman consul Flamininus routed 
Philip the Fifth, the king of Makedon, who had threat- 
ened to aid Hannibal against the Romans. The battle 
took place near the hills called Kynos Kephalae. After 
this victory the Romans allowed the Thessalians to 
remain for a time autonomous under the government 
of native military rulers. Again, in the formidable 
struggle between Caesar and Pompey for the mastery 
of the Roman empire it was in Thessaly, near Phar- 
salos, that the decisive battle was fought, the battle 
that went so far to decide whether the imperial republic 
was to be democratic or monarchical. Caesar won, and 
from that day "Caesarism" was characteristic of all 
things Roman. 

Thessaly has in all its long history never enjoyed 
free life for any length of time. Oppressors have 
always been among the Thessals, or at least near 
enough to disturb them. We have seen that in pre- 
historic times tribe after tribe invaded this country, 
driving out or suppressing the previous owners. Then 
came the tyrannical lords who flourished here when the 
rest of Greece was in the classical period of her free- 
dom. Then came Philip's menials, and later the 
Roman officials. In the Middle Ages it was governed 
from Byzantion. In these Byzantiac times streams of 
plunderers and invaders swept over and through these 
plains. Alaric and his Gothic hordes raided the entire 
country in 396. Not quite a hundred years later 
Theodoric, another leader of Goths, again plundered 
the Thessals. Bulgarians are first reported to have rav- 
aged these regions as far south as Thermopylae in the 
year 517. Slavic tribes in 577 spread terrible desola- 



THE THESSALIC PLAIN 165 

tion over all this land. Five hundred years subse- 
quently, the daring Normans, who had mastered 
Southern Italy, crossed the Pindos Mountains from 
Dyrrachion, entered the plain of Thessaly, and laid 
siege to Larisa. But after a siege of six months the 
emperor of Byzantion came to the assistance of the 
town, and Boemund was forced to retire with his 
Norman knights. It must have been a well-fortified 
city and its inhabitants must have been remarkably 
valorous to have withstood the impetuous Normans so 
long. 

Thessaly seems to have been able quickly to recover 
in part from the effects of each dread invasion. Ed- 
risi, an Arabian geographer, describes the country 
as it was in the eleventh century. Trikka was then a 
rich city in the midst of vineyards; Larisa was an 
opulent town, and an important mart for figs and 
grapes and wheat. Almyros was a frequented seaport. 

Of the successive invaders that came into these 
plains during the last two thousand years, most were 
merely plunderers, not colonizers. They therefore 
usually retired after exhausting the search for portable 
property. Some, however, remained. There are a few 
settlements of Albanians. In the hill country west and 
south there are many villages where the Vlachic 
language prevails among the women, showing that 
Vlachs settled in these pasture regions in considerable 
numbers. They were nomadic shepherds originally, 
and a good portion of them are even yet of this ilk. 
They were so numerous here in the twelfth century, 
and even afterward, that Thessaly was in those days 
often called Great Vlachia. These Vlachs are possibly 



166 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

akin to the Wallachians of Roumania. But there is 
not the slightest proof that they came into the Pindos 
and Othrys from the Danubian provinces. Where their 
original home was we do not know. Nor do we know 
why they speak a Latin tongue. Whether they are of 
Greek descent or not has not yet been ascertained. 
Their ethnic origin is as much open to dispute as is 
that of the Roumanians themselves. 

Fifty or sixty years before the fall of Constanti- 
nople, the land of Thessaly had already been seized by 
Moslem invaders, who portioned it out among them- 
selves. These Thessalian Moslems are thought to have 
come chiefly from the province of Ikonion in Asia. 
Hence they are called Koniarids, even to the present 
day. The Christian inhabitants of the fields and level 
parts of Thessaly suffered much from the domination 
of the Koniarids. These Christians are known by the 
name of "Karagounids." The Karagounid is not a 
lovable specimen of mankind. He is filthy in appear- 
ance, lazy, and of course uneducated. Bad masters 
have bad slaves. This was the last of the Greek prov- 
inces to be liberated. Only since 1881 has the darkness 
of Moslemism been lifted from round the Karagounids. 
Progress has begun and will continue. 



IN ARKADIA 

In the middle of the Peloponnesos, which consti- 
tutes the southern half of Greece, is the wonderland of 
Arkadia. It is a region of wild and natural grandeur. 
Its physical attractions have been ensouled by the 
hauntings and enchantings of long ages of mankind. 
Its rocks and rivers and valleys teem with myth and 
history. And yet Arkadia is practically an unknown 
country. 

While Greece attracts every year numberless cara- 
vans of highly intelligent visitors, exceedingly few are 
those who rebel against blind obedience to the travel- 
ing agents and the ciceroni, and direct their course 
away from the old ruts of common travel into such 
isolated and unpopularized localities as are these hidden 
retreats of ancient Arkadia. This is perhaps fortunate 
enough. For a profitable trip hither, even from so near 
a starting-point as Athens, cannot be lightly planned, 
if the traveler wishes to be secure against various un- 
pleasant annoyances. To the stranger who plunges 
into these recesses unprepared, the trip may prove to 
be as troublesome as it would have been incomparably 
delightful under the contrary circumstances. Arkadia 
demands from its guests special preparation and special 
tastes. The typical travelers who set out from Athens 
to visit predetermined spots in the interior of the 
Peloponnesos, after seeing the oft-praised tombs and 
walls of Mykense and Tiryns in the plains east of 
Arkadia, are then transferred across Arkadia through 

167 



168 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the most unattractive and least historic part, into the 
plains of Elis, west of the Arkadian plateau, to see the 
ruined Altis and the masterpieces of art at ancient 
Olympia. Lack of ready-made conveniences, primitive 
methods of life and travel, and a certain insecurity of 
life and property, render Arkadia pleasantly accessible 
only to the energetic tourist who is not content with 
having the attractions of the country he visits marked 
out for him and made of easy reach, but desires the 
exciting pleasure of discovering them for himself and 
the exhilarating consciousness that they cannot be seen 
without unusual risk. But as tourists of this caliber 
are not frequent here, Arkadia is accordingly enjoyed 
almost exclusively by the occasional scholars who, 
urged by a sense of duty, visit it as specialists in Hel- 
lenic history and mythic lore, or who wish to see its 
remains of ancient art. 

Arkadia, as a country of rare and noble natural 
scenery, can claim first attention among the attractive 
places of Europe; but as a rule, natural scenery 
does not sympathetically make us thoroughly to 
feel its beauty or its greatness except when asso- 
ciated in our imagination with the life and story of 
man, and surrounded with tales of past strife or glory 
and sorrow. Fortunately the hills and dales of Ar- 
kadia teem with reminiscences of all kinds of lore; and 
local history, tales of adventure in bloody deeds or 
heroic acts, graceful myths and ghastly superstitions, 
episodes of frenzied love or consoling religion, as pre- 
served in the songs of the untamed mountaineers and 
the folk-tales of the evening fireside, are localized in 
the valleys and crags and ruined abbeys and castles. 



IN ARKADIA 169 

The province of Arkadia is an extensive and ele- 
vated plateau standing in the middle of the Pelopon- 
nesos, with steep and in many places insurmountable 
sides. Only on the west and south declivities is access 
somewhat easy into this tableland from several points. 
On these two sides the beds of mountain streams, and 
other pathways cut out by nature, are more frequent. 
And through these passes communication is possible 
with the plains below. From the east side there are 
only four entrances known and frequented since classic 
times down to the present day. Of these, three are 
simply rugged mule-paths. The fourth one, however, 
which leads up from Argos to near the site of the 
ancient city of Tegea, is so easy of access that it has 
been found possible to build a railroad through it. 
This railroad runs across southern Arkadia, touching 
at the city of Tripolis and the town of Megalopolis, 
and thence continues on to Messenia. 

From the north side Arkadia was also accessible in 
antiquity on foot or even by mountain horses. But a 
few years ago a great innovation was made here also. 
The Greek government, in order to be able quickly to 
bring the sturdy inhabitants of Arkadia down into the 
plains in case of war, built a railroad twelve miles long, 
which leads up into the northern and lower part of 
Arkadia, starting directly from the Korinthiac Gulf, 
and terminating at Kalabryta. This railroad is of 
the toothed kind, necessarily, on account of the steep- 
ness of the ascent ; for in this distance of twelve miles, 
it makes an ascent of nearly twenty-two hundred feet. 
By these two railroads, both of which have direct 
communication with Athens and Patrae, the most fre- 



170 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

quented centers of travel in Greece, it is easy enough 
to reach the outskirts of the wild lands of Arkadia. 
But it is only after getting this far that difficulties 
begin. 

This high plateau of Arkadia forms a kind of 
elevated square in the middle of the peninsula, or 
island rather, of the Peloponnesos. At each of its four 
corners there stands out a majestic group of mountain 
tops, which are quite high even above the general level 
of the Arkadian tableland, but which rise like monu- 
ments of God grandly above the surrounding belt of 
plains and the sea beyond. 

Here it is customary to measure distances by the 
number of hours or days required to cover them in 
traveling. By this standard we may convey a notion 
of the extent of Arkadia by saying that one could ride 
through it from north to south on a mountain horse, 
which of course never quickens itself into a trot, in 
two or three days of at least twelve hours each, accord- 
ing to the route selected; and a similar trip across the 
plateau from east to west could be made in one day 
of from fifteen to eighteen hours' duration. This 
means continuous riding, and by the valley-routes. 

The plains that surround Arkadia and separate it 
from the sea are, on an average, about twenty miles 
wide. On clear mornings from the tops of the highest 
peaks on the plateau, nearly all of Arkadia itself is 
visible, together with good portions of the wide fringe 
of vine-clad plains, beyond which can be seen, reaching 
off as if into measureless space, the blue waters of 
various portions of the Mediterranean. 

Within its four corners this great interior tableland 



IN ARKADIA 171 

is by no means a level plateau. It has mountains of 
its own, and corresponding valleys. Its mountains do 
not rise to the tall height of the border ones, but yet 
they are sublime enough; and its valleys are not ex- 
tensive, like the rich plains below, but for that very 
reason are the more picturesque. In the middle of 
the north boundary of Arkadia, between the two 
corner-groups of Kyllene to the east and Erymanthos 
to the west, rise the mountains of Aroania, about seven 
thousand feet high. It may be remarked in passing 
that this height is so much the grander because the 
tops of the mountains are only about thirteen miles 
distant by air line from the edge of the sea, in the gulf 
of Korinth. From these Aroanian mountains there 
extends southward over the tableland a long and high 
chain, whose highest point within Arkadia is about 
five thousand seven hundred feet. This central chain 
divides the entire plateau into eastern and western 
Arkadia. And from this central chain lower moun- 
tains run out in both directions, thus entirely covering 
the country with low mountains and hills. Naturally 
among these closely set mountains and hills the valleys 
are numberless. Nearly all of them are small, with 
the exception of that of Mantineia and Tegea north and 
south of the modern city of Tripolis, and the larger 
one around the town of Megalopolis. Thus the great 
high plateau is all an interchanging variation of lofty 
mountain tops and corresponding deep and narrow 
valleys. 

The western part of Arkadia is well drained by 
mountain torrents that quickly carry off the waters of 
rain and snow directly into the Alpheios, which is the 



172 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

principal river of the Peloponnesos, or into its tribu- 
tary, the beautiful Ladon. But east of the central moun- 
tains a curious phenomenon is of frequent occurrence. 
Many of the valleys here have no outlet overground, 
although great quantities of water surge down into 
them. But in nearly every one of these closed valleys 
there is a natural opening in the earth, into which the 
water runs, and thus is carried off through under- 
ground passages to the plains below, where it reappears 
in springs and sources of small rivers. One such outlet 
surges up as fresh water out in the sea, near Argos. 
These strange chasms, called "katabothra" by the 
natives, are a great blessing to the people of the valleys. 
But on account of the quantities of mud and wood and 
weeds which this water carries into the "katabothra" 
a stoppage of the chasms sometimes occurs, and then 
the water collects and stands in the valley, forming a 
mountain lake. It is easy to understand that such 
water, being almost stagnant, becomes a source of 
fevers and sickness to the villagers who nestle on the 
slopes round about. Accordingly portions of Arkadia 
are justly regarded as unhealthful. 

Another cause that frequently renders the villages 
more unhealthful is that often they are built on the 
shady side of the mountains, and thus do not enjoy 
sufficient direct sunlight. Still even these ill-famed dis- 
tricts are not notably insalubrious. And when the na- 
tives speak of them as being such, they mean that these 
regions are unhealthful as compared with the other 
parts of Arkadia. For if we, in our northern countries, 
were condemned to live with the other surroundings of 
dirt and privation which these neighbors of the closed 



IN ARKADIA 173 

"katabothra" enjoy, perhaps we would very soon be- 
come an extinct people. Excepting these partially 
infected regions, the climate of Arkadia is extremely 
healthful and invigorating. In summer a certain fresh 
and at times even raw but not unpleasant air is continu- 
ally in motion. It is not easy for us to associate the 
idea of a northern winter with our notion of what the 
climate of Greece is. This is because literature and 
travel have made us acquainted with the sunny climate 
of Attika and other seaside portions of Greece, but 
have omitted to impress us with the fact that in the 
interior of the country, and in mountainous districts, 
the climate may be very different. Winter up here is 
long and severe; and while in the surrounding plains 
along the sea, the orange trees bloom, and the inhab- 
itants can sit in the open air enjoying the southern sun 
in December and January and February, on these 
heights within easy sight of the cozy plains below, the 
natives wrap themselves in their woolen capotes or 
huddle round their primeval hearths, to keep warm. 
But in summer they have their turn at comfort, for 
while the men of the plains swelter in almost unen- 
durable heat, up here, with the exception of one or 
two hours at midday, the thermometer rests at about 
seventy-five degrees. 

The sea washes against every side of the Pelopon- 
nesos. But the belt of plain that engirdles Arkadia has 
always prevented the Arkadians from becoming a mari- 
time people. In this respect they were different from 
all the other important tribes of the Greeks. Homer 
tells us that in the eleventh century before Christ they 
went indeed to Asia Minor along with the other 



174 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

Peloponnesians to fight in the common cause of the 
Hellenes against the Trojans. But they were the only 
tribe that possessed no ships of their own, and the 
commander-in-chief, Agamemnon, had to furnish ves- 
sels to transport them across the ^Egean. 

This inland character of Arkadia caused the loss of 
its ancient name in the Middle Ages. For we find that 
when Arkadia, with nearly all of the Peloponnesos, 
was under the sway of the French Crusaders and their 
heirs, the name in common use was not "Arkadia," 
but "Mesarea," or "The Midlands." That its ancient 
name should have disappeared and have been replaced 
by one that simply describes the locality of the plateau, 
is not so very remarkable; for long before the coming 
of the Franks, many of the old Greek names had en- 
tirely disappeared from the mouths and the memory 
of the people, giving place to new ones. Many of these 
new names were not of Hellenic but of Slavonic origin. 

This presence of Slavonic place-names is one of 
the mysteries of Arkadian and mediaeval Greek history 
in general. For when the French under Champlitte 
and Villeharduin came here in the year 1205, shortly 
after the capture of Constantinople by the Europeans 
of the Fourth Crusade, they found in Arkadia a popu- 
lation which in all respects seemed to be Greek, speak- 
ing a Hellenic dialect and having none but Greek 
traditions. And yet many of the names of places were, 
and still continue to be, in spite of the tendency to 
Hellenize them, Slavonic. 

The Franks, who came here as stray Crusaders, held 
most of the Peloponnesos, which then was called the 
"Morea" — a name which thus has made its way into 



IN ARKADIA 175 

western literature — for upward of two hundred and 
twenty-five years. For more than one hundred years, 
Arkadia was a part of this "Principality of Achaia, ,, 
as the Frankish possessions in the Morea were called. 
Under the control of these vigorous Westerners the 
Peloponnesos, which previously had suffered indescrib- 
ably from repeated invasions and pillagings, began to 
revive. Arkadia especially began to flourish, and this 
in spite of an unbroken series of little wars, either be- 
tween rival French barons who lived in their strong- 
holds on the hilltops, or between the barons and their 
continually rebellious subjects, or against foes from 
without. Throughout the land the French built forts 
and wall-protected towns; in prominent and im- 
pregnable positions they erected castles and watch- 
towers to preserve their own and the public safety. 
In their castles the French princes and barons lived, 
surrounded by knights and vassals of Hellenic as well 
as of western blood, in a romantic and savage grandeur 
that equaled the chivalric life of their kinsmen in 
Europe. But they have passed away. The frowning 
ruins of their castles still crown the tops of hills and 
crags. Some of their fortresses, like that of Karytaena, 
were so strong, and so well built, that five hundred 
years later they were useful in the long wars between 
the Moslems and Christians of Greece at the beginning 
of the last century. And although the spears of 
the iron knights no longer glitter from these mediaeval 
castles, they are not any the less a source of fear to the 
Arkadian peasant. For many of them have been re- 
peopled by another set of beings, more dangerous even 
than the mailed soldiers — by cobolds and nereids and 



176 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

other spiteful supernatural spirits that delight in vexing 
mankind. These ruins are avoided in time of night. 
In the folklore of the people, as preserved around their 
winter firesides in story and song, there is much that 
recalls the domination of the Franks ; and tales relating 
to fair daughters of princes and daring rescues by 
knights, as told in connection with these crumbling 
old ruins, are often a remnant of the songs of ad- 
venture and chivalry that were sung in these once 
splendid halls by the world-famed troubadours of the 
strangers. 

Prior to the coming of the Franks the country had 
relapsed into a low stage of civilization. It is easy to 
understand that to reach such a stage on a downward 
course is more sad and hopeless than to reach it ascend- 
ing from savagery. Life in Arkadia had again become 
a very simple affair, compared with that of developed 
civilization. All were either shepherds or peasants. 
Of course, it may be true that this is the natural life 
for Arkadians; but it is not necessary to note that 
among peasants and shepherds there may be an im- 
mensely long scale of degrees of culture and intelli- 
gence. In all Arkadia there was but one school, as 
far as we know, and that was a monastic institution 
founded in the tenth century near the charming town 
of Demetsana, by a citizen of that place who had gone 
to Constantinople and risen high in the estimation of 
the Patriarch Polyevktos and the emperor Nikephoros 
Phokas. This monastery still exists, built in the cliffs 
on the west bank of the river Lousios ; but its property 
has been confiscated, its library has been mostly de- 
stroyed, and its beautiful Byzantine domed church is 



IN ARKADIA 177 

ready to fall into decay. The only institutions of civili- 
zation in those days were the churches and monasteries, 
both of which were numerous ; and it is probable that 
in most of the monasteries provision was continually 
made to have a few men that were capable of reading 
and writing. Accordingly, in these religious retreats 
some spark of book knowledge was certainly kept alive. 

Although no other foreigners ever exercised so long 
a sway over the Arkadians as did the Franks, with the 
exception of their successors, the Moslems, yet when 
the Frankish domination came to an end, what had 
happened with all previous strangers happened again — 
although they left many outward marks and monu- 
ments of their dominion here, they had almost no in- 
fluence whatever on the people as a race. As to the 
French, after their power in Greece was destroyed, 
chiefly by other Westerners and especially by the 
Catalans of Spain, most of them returned to Europe. 
Those who remained did so because they had inter- 
married with natives, as was frequently the case in 
Arkadia. These, adopting the religion and mode of 
life of the Arkadians, became themselves out-and-out 
natives. And only their names, preserved even to this 
day here and there, betray the Gallic origin of their 
wild offspring. 

Of all the Greeks, the ancient Arkadians boasted to 
be the oldest. Their traditions declared them to have 
existed before the moon was made. They claimed that 
they were the first of men to come together and build 
a city, and that this city was Lykosoura. That Lyko- 
soura was a very old and revered city is evident. It is 
today sacred to every worshiper of the beautiful in art, 



178 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

because of the wonderful pieces of sculpture unearthed 
there a few years ago. These treasures, representing 
the acme of ancient Greek art, are now kept at Athens 
in the National Museum. At Lykosoura, in antiquity, 
Demeter, the mild earth-goddess, and her mysterious 
daughter, Kore, were especially worshiped. The ruins 
of Lykosoura may still be located, in virtue of the 
discoveries referred to, on the slope of Mount Lykaeon, 
which is associated with the oldest stories and theogony 
of Arkadia. On this mountain Zevs was born, the chief 
of the deities that succeeded to the old Pelasgian 
dynasty of Kronos, and here it was that Hagno and 
her associate nymphs took care of him as an infant. 
On the top of Lykaeon there was a shrine sacred to 
Zevs, which no mortal ever desired to enter. For 
whatever living creature passed within it lost its 
shadow therein and was doomed to die within a year. 
But this holy mountain possesses a more tangible fame, 
for even in the days of the periegete Pavsanias, when 
it was not customary to introduce into literature de- 
scriptions of natural scenery, this traveler makes an 
exception in his visit to Lykaeon, and records the vast- 
ness and beauty of the view from its summit. Lykaeon 
is, in fact, one of those points from which a large por- 
tion of the Peloponnesos can be seen rolling itself out 
in all directions. And the roads that lead up to Lykaeon 
and Lykosoura from the town of Megalopolis, founded 
by Epameinondas the Theban as a bulwark against 
inroads from Sparta, pass along wild and interesting 
mountain slopes. 

As being an early and revered center of religion and 
of other civilization, Mount Lykaeon remained impor- 



IN ARKADIA 179 

tant even in historic times. In the sixth century before 
Christ, a beautiful silver coin, with a head of Zevs on 
it, was minted here at Lykosoura, to be used as the 
common monetary unit of such cities as, loosely leagued 
together, formed what is known in history as the 
Arkadian Confederacy. These early coins, as well as 
different later ones, that likewise bear the head of Zevs, 
are still found in the soil and in the beds of the moun- 
tain torrents of Arkadia, and thus find their way into 
the numismatical collections of Athens and Europe. 

Not only the sublime Zevs, but also other Arkadian 
deities had shrines at or near Lykosoura. The high 
Nomian Mountains that run toward the west from 
Lykaeon were favorite haunts of the shepherd god 
Pan, a deity that naturally plays an important role in 
the mythology of this land of shepherds and peasants. 

The Arkadians of old were lovers of music, and 
enjoyed widespread fame for their skill therein. The 
music of the flute, the choice instrument of their be- 
loved Pan, and of the harp, were dear to every Arka- 
dian rustic. He thought, at times, that he could hear 
the soft distant notes of the flute of Pan, as the god 
strolled along the cool streams, or sat under the plane 
trees in the Arkadian groves. And on the slopes of high 
Kyllene, which in the northeast corner of Arkadia out- 
tops even the neighboring peaks of Aroania, the twang- 
ing of the strings of the harp could be heard, for here 
it was that Hermes found the huge tortoise, whose 
shell he took, and by stretching cords across it, made 
the first stringed instrument of this kind. These Arka- 
dian music myths are interesting when coupled with the 
historic fact that the Arkadians were really devotees 



180 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

of music, in its simpler forms. According to the 
testimony of the reliable Poly bios, himself a native of 
Megalopolis, the Arkadians thought it no great loss 
to be ignorant of the other branches of learning, but 
regarded it as a disgrace to have no skill in music. 
On the great feast days, the young men took active 
part in representing their national religious dramas by 
singing the choral odes and by dancing in the orchestra 
round the altar of Dionysos. To this love of music 
did Polybios attribute the noble and good charac- 
teristics of the ancient Arkadians. 

Outside of their skill in music, the Arkadians had 
no enviable fame in the intellectual line. They were 
even proverbially regarded as a dull people, and it be- 
came common for the later Greek comic dramatists to 
describe country simpletons by the phrase "blastema 
Arkadikon," or "Arkadian saplings." And since these 
comedians of the middle period were followed in this 
detail, as in every other, by their Latin imitators, the 
term "arcadius juvenis," applied to some awkward 
clown, may often have brought roars of hilarious 
laughter from the audiences of the old open-air theaters 
of Italy. 

But for all that the Arkadians had their scholars, 
and men of eminent qualities in other ranks of life. 
Only in dramatic literature, in architecture, and in 
sculpture do we find a dearth of native Arkadian talent. 
Yet even in these lines they were not entirely unpro- 
ductive. Pavsanias mentions a noteworthy monument 
which he saw in the precincts of the Delphian Apollon, 
representing the Arkadian hero Azan Arkas, with his 
brothers and relations, dedicated at Delphi by the men 



IN ARKADIA 181 

of Tegea, and made by the native Arkadian sculptor 
Samolis. Among their scholars the most eminent was 
Polybios, one of the noblest and most philosophical of 
the long series of writers of Greek history, son of one 
of the last generals that fought for the autonomy of 
Greece. This historian is he who as a boy accompanied 
his father Lykortas to Messenia and brought back to 
Megalopolis the ashes of the murdered Philopoemen, 
the great leader whose skill and patriotism won for 
him in history the title of u the last of the Greeks." 
And in this sorrowful but sublime procession, with its 
character of eternity, like the reliefs on some old 
funereal marble, it was the young Polybios who carried 
the urn with the dust of Philopcemen in it. 

The primitive inhabitants of Arkadia are said to 
have been Pelasgians. But who the Pelasgians were is 
still a mystery. They may have been not one people, 
but a conglomeration of peoples of various origin. In 
other parts of Greece these Pelasgians retired or suc- 
cumbed before the influx of the newer tribes, that are 
thought to have been the ancestors of most of the 
historic Greeks. But here in Arkadia the Pelasgians 
were more firmly established, and continued to exist in 
these mountain fastnesses down to the beginning of 
historic times, unmixed with other Greeks. 

The mythical progenitor of this Pelasgian people, 
Pelasgos, was, by Arkadian myth, a native of these 
mountains. Story holds that he was the first civilizer 
of the Arkadians. He taught them to build huts for 
shelter, instead of living in caves or in the open air, 
and to wear clothes made of skins. He taught them to 
select their food with more care from the products of 



182 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the earth, and introduced the habit of eating nuts from 
a certain kind of oak tree. From this latter circum- 
stance the Arkadians became known in literature as 
"acorn-eaters." This special kind of oak tree still 
flourishes throughout Arkadia, and in places consti- 
tutes beautiful groves. But the acorns have lost their 
value as food, and now are gathered before becoming 
ripe and exported to Europe, to be used as a chemical 
in the tanning of leather. 

Besides these beautiful groves of gnarled oaks, the 
trees that most attract attention in Arkadia are the 
extensive pine forests that cover the slopes of many of 
the mountains. Unfortunately, however, although the 
Arkadian is highly capable of admiring the usefulness 
and the cooling shade of a tree just as fully as though 
he had stepped alive out of the pages of Theokritos, 
yet he has no mercy for the trees if he happens to be a 
shepherd. Then the sense of beauty yields to the spirit 
of personal gain. For the forests, especially those of 
pine, prevent the growth of grass, and therefore are 
often ruthlessly set on fire and burned by these shep- 
herds, to increase the extent of the pasture regions on 
the mountains. 

Besides the oaks and the pines there are to be seen 
everywhere isolated and majestic plane trees, which are 
especially numerous along the streams and the beds of 
torrents and by fountains. Indeed, along one stream, 
which the traveler may see on his way to Lykosoura, 
there grew such a profusion of these trees in antiquity 
that the locality was called "Plataniston," or "Plane- 
dell, " and, curiously enough, the name is still applicable 
to that beautiful region for the same reason. 



IN ARKADIA 183 

After the mythical but not unreal Pelasgos, the 
next great benefactor and civilizer of the Arkadians 
was the hero from whom they took their name, as the 
instructive myth asserts. This man was Azan Arkas, 
who taught them how to turn the wool of their flocks 
into garments through the arts of spinning and weav- 
ing, and how to grind grain and bake it into bread, 
instead of eating vegetable materials raw. Arkas had 
learned from the mystic Neoptolemos of Attika the 
cereal art of sowing wheat and making bread. 

Another interesting story from these remote days 
is that Evander, a native of the Arkadian town of 
Pallantion, after Arkadia had become entirely civilized, 
wandered away with a band of adventurous followers, 
eleven hundred years before Christ, and came to Italy, 
where he established a colony, and gave to his new 
home the name of his native town, Pallantion. But 
in time the name changed itself by distortion into 
"Palation." And from this name came the appellation 
of the "Palatine Hill." Evander's colony afterward 
grew, by accessions from the surrounding country, 
into the great city of Rome. Evander brought to 
Latium a knowledge of music, as was proper for an 
Arkadian to do, and the old Greek alphabet, which by 
slight modifications constituted later the alphabet of the 
Romans. Thus from Arkadia, according to the story, 
were the first germs of civilization introduced into 
Italy. 

Although the land of Arkadia constitutes a physical 
unit when contrasted with the lands lying about it, it 
is, nevertheless, by the smaller mountains within it, 
divided into a number of vales, which by their nature 



1 84 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

constitute so many immense dens, so to speak, within 
which the rustic inhabitants lived practically in inde- 
pendence of each other. This was the case in antiquity ; 
and in the Middle Ages, when insecurity of life in- 
creased, there existed almost no relations whatsoever 
between inhabitants of neighboring valleys, unless we 
call by this name the continual little wars of town 
against town, to settle disputes regarding the right to 
pasture flocks on disputed mountains. Even in the last 
century it is a known fact that the inhabitants rarely, 
and most of them never, visited those villages distant 
only by a walk of two hours. 

The gruff Arkadian was not, and is not, a man to 
make friends. In antiquity the Arkadians usually had 
no allies among other Greeks, but always had powerful 
and merciless enemies, especially the jealous Spartans. 
They generally knew how to protect themselves, how- 
ever, and were among the last of the Greeks to see 
their independence torn away from them. 

After Greece became a Roman province, the various 
Arkadian towns took part in the successive civil wars 
that divided the Roman empire. And with the excep- 
tion of the single city of Mantineia, these unlucky 
Arkadians, out of a spirit of stubborn opposition and 
praiseworthy bravery, always took sides with the 
weaker party, and consequently were always doomed 
to be left with the vanquished. Thus, when Sulla 
carried war into Greece in order to drive out the armies 
of Mithridates, the Arkadians stood against the cruel 
Roman, under the banners of the Hellenized Asiatic. 
Later, in the war between Caesar and Pompey, which 
ended by the victory of Caesar on the battlefield of 



IN ARKADIA 185 

Pharsalos, they fought on the side of the defeated 
Pompey. And when, after the assassination of Caesar, 
Brutus and Cassius tried to stand against the forces of 
Octavius and Anthony in the passes of the gold mines 
near Philippi, the Arkadians, spurred on with the prom- 
ise of being allowed to plunder Sparta if victorious 
in this battle, partook of the results of the hopeless 
defeat of Brutus and his associate. And finally, when 
Antony turned against his former friend Octavius, and 
was doomed to be defeated in the world-famed naval 
battle of Aktion, most of the Arkadian towns had taken 
sides with Antony — fated to be with the vanquished. 

This unbroken series of ill-fortune, together with 
other causes of decay, brought ruin to Arkadia. The 
geographer Strabon, who, early in the first century of 
our era, traveled over a good portion of the civilized 
world, describes other parts of Greece in detail, but 
avoided going to Arkadia, remarking that its great 
cities had passed away, and nothing but heaps of ruins 
marked their former sites, and that the country was 
desolate. 

Although Strabon's sorrowful epitaph over the dead 
cities of Arkadia was something of an exaggeration, 
nevertheless it is true that the period of great desola- 
tion had begun. This was increased by the frequent 
inroads of later invaders, beginning with that of Alaric 
and the Goths in 395 after Christ, and by the destruc- 
tive assistance of earthquakes and plagues. 

After the departure of the French, the betterment 
in the condition of affairs introduced by them again 
decayed under the demoralizing rule of the Ottomans, 
which lasted down to the beginning of the last century. 



186 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

But a certain spirit of western chivalry, due in part to 
this Frankish rule, continued to thrive from that time 
on in the mountain fastnesses. Its votaries were the 
celebrated klephts, or mountain refugees, who pre- 
ferred to be roving outlaws and wild adventurers rather 
than to submit to the rule of the Crescent. And when, 
in 1 82 1, the war-storm of freedom burst out, it was 
Arkadia that furnished the most reliable soldiers of 
the Peloponnesos, and the greatest leader in the war, 
Kolokot rones. 

The present inhabitants are in character much like 
the ancient — hospitable, as are all mountaineers, but 
yet not ready or willing to make friendship with others 
than their own townsmen. They still possess the un- 
couth and strong wit of their classic ancestors, together 
with their disregard for much learning. Their famed 
love of music is lost. For the songs of the peasants 
and shepherds cannot have the least claim to excellence 
in that respect. 

As in antiquity, so now, the inhabitants never live in 
isolated houses, but always in groups, forming hamlets 
or towns. All Arkadia now possesses but one center 
large enough to be called a city, Tripolis, which oc- 
cupies a position between the ruins of Tegea and 
Mantineia, and is the modern successor of these famous 
cities; and yet ancient Arkadia had at least a dozen 
cities more important than this modern Tripolis. 

Many of the modern villages are very picturesque; 
all of them are situated most romantically. The prin- 
cipal buildings in every village are the churches. The 
stranger is often surprised to find such imposing 
edifices standing in the midst of a village of huts. But 



IN ARKADIA 187 

the Arkadian of today, like his ancestors, is religious — 
more religious than good. He delights in feasts, and 
in the "panegyrics," or occasions of dancing, singing, 
and eating that accompany church celebrations. Every 
mountain top is crowned with a chapel, and has its 
analogous feast-day, when all the inhabitants of the 
village to which the mountain belongs ascend to the 
little plateau round the chapel, many of them dressed 
in mountain costumes of kilt and fez, where they first 
hear mass, and then amuse themselves in lively songs 
and vigorous dances, and in feastings, in which roast 
lamb and resinated wine play the chief role. It is also 
common to build chapels near springs of cool water. 
These chapels are often sacred to the Madonna, under 
the title of "zoodochos pege," or "the Fountain that 
contains the Life-Giver," referring to the Blessed 
Virgin as Mother of God, while the chapels on moun- 
tain tops are usually dedicated to the prophet Elias or 
to the Ascension of Our Lord. 

That the ancient Arkadians were likewise religious 
is evident in many ways, and tangibly by the fact that 
they built most beautiful and costly temples. Two of 
the noblest temples of the Peloponnesos were in Arka- 
dia; one at Tegea, sacred to Athena Alea, and the 
other at Bassse, built in honor of Apollon Epikourios. 
Of Apollon's temple splendid ruins are still to be seen; 
and of Athena's shrine there exist beautiful pieces of 
sculpture from the pediments and frieze. What a pity 
for the artistic fame of Arkadia that these temples had 
to be built by foreign artists ! For the masterpiece at 
Bassae is the work of Iktinos the Athenian, who built 
the famous Parthenon on the Akropolis of Athens ; and 



188 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the temple of Athena at Tegea was planned and dec- 
orated by the equally famous sculptor and architect, 
Skopas, from the island of Paros. 

The villages are often situated at the heads of 
streams, on the slopes of theater-shaped dells, where 
the gushing fountains serve both for furnishing drink- 
ing water, which the Greek, despite his like for a 
moderate quantity of wine, regards as the most luxu- 
rious of beverages, and for irrigating the gardens that 
often surround the houses of the smaller villages. 

These village fountains are the beginnings of moun- 
tain torrents, which flow on until most of them empty 
into the Alpheios or its tributary, the Ladon. Chiefly 
these two rivers carry off the waters of western 
and southern Arkadia. The source of the Ladon is 
one of the most beautiful imaginable. It rises, a full 
stream, suddenly out of the earth at the foot of the 
Aroanian mountains. In this Ladon, as well as in the 
crystal Lousios, in which the nymphs used to bathe the 
infant Zevs, the most beautiful of streams, and in other 
mountain torrents, there is an abundance of finest 
speckled trout and other fresh-water fish, which would 
afford excellent sport, but which the natives kill and 
catch by exploding dynamite in the streams. 

These, then, are the wonderful hills and valleys and 
streams of Arkadia, with their untamed denizens ; and 
here is something of their long and varied history of 
myth and lore, which make up the poetical land that, 
on account of its scenery, has been called "the Switzer- 
land of the Peloponnesos." 



MEGA SPEL^ON, OR THE MONASTERY OF 
THE GREAT CAVE 

In the early years of its existence monastic life was 
identical in the East and in the West. But this identity 
rapidly disappeared. For, while the western monk, 
more active and sympathetic than his eastern proto- 
type, could not hold himself aloof from the temporal 
and spiritual welfare of his fellow-Christians, the east- 
ern monk became more and more selfish, spent his 
religious solicitude in caring for no one's soul or body 
except his own; and while remaining a passionate de- 
fender of eastern dogma, never was worried by the 
duty of laboring either with hand or with intellect for 
the amelioration of the moral condition of other men. 

The western monk interested himself in the daily 
life of the people and rivaled the lay priest's care of 
souls. His superiority of learning and austerity of life 
rendered him more efficient than his secular confrere, 
and the result was that the lay priest had to imitate 
him, and practically become a monk, in order not to 
lose his sway and influence. The western lay priest 
accordingly accepted the celibacy and office and se- 
cluded life of the monk, remaining different only by 
his not taking up his abode within the walls of a mon- 
astery. This influence, however, was mutual, and not 
all from one side, as is evident. Although each set of 
clergy, by a kind of natural fitness, devoted itself rather 
to one kind of work than to another, yet no kind was 
exclusive property. In reality, therefore, the religious 

189 



190 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

priests of the West differ from the secular clergy only 
in the very unimportant accidentals of dress and in 
routine of life. 

While, then, the priests of the West are practically 
all monks, and the monks of the West have nearly all 
become secular, this useful amalgamation has not taken 
place in the East. There the secular priest has accepted 
almost nothing from the regular; and the monk, al- 
though in some countries, as in Russia, encroaching on 
the domain of the secular priest, has not assimilated 
himself unto him. This lack of assimilation is as 
natural in the East as it would have been strange in 
the West. For in the East the monk has really no 
qualities exclusively his that would add luster to the 
life of other men ; and the secular has no special virtues 
distinguishing him from any good member of his flock 
that the religious might be moved to emulate. 

In Greece and Turkey monasticism has essentially 
remained what it was centuries ago ; and what does not 
change and grow, if a thing of life, is probably in the 
stage of decline or decrepitude. Monasticism is not 
on the same level in all parts of the East. In some 
countries, as in most of Russia, it is still in vigorous 
activity. In Greece, however, it has become a useless 
institution, and unless renewed by being thoroughly 
reformed, will soon lose what little influence it still 
possesses. 

The following historical and descriptive sketch of 
one of the most noted monasteries of the East, and the 
most celebrated and popular one of the modern 
kingdom of Greece, will, at least indirectly, furnish 
some idea of what monasticism has been here, what it 



MEGA SPEUEON 191 

is, and what the Greeks think of it. My judgments, 
if not always formed on theirs, agree therewith. They 
properly respect the monasteries and monks, not ex- 
clusively in proportion to their worth today, but also in 
relation to their historic past. My sketch will follow 
this idea, and will describe the monastery as it appeals 
to the Greek, and as it really is. 

Mega Spelseon is not the only famous monastery of 
free Greece. For Hagia Lavra in Arkadia, the Mete- 
ora in Thessaly, the Taxiarchs near ^Egion, and others 
also have their peculiar historic reputation. But Mega 
Spelaeon has been more closely connected with the 
varied life and fortunes of the people, and has partaken 
of their aspirations more than any of these others. It 
is also the largest in respect of the number of monks 
and the most noted in respect of wealth. 

Mega Spelseon is located in the northern part of the 
Peloponnesos and in the province of ancient Arkadia, 
near to where the mountains of Arkadia join the neigh- 
boring ones of Achaia. It is situated high on the slope 
of a long cliff overlooking the rocky bed of the Erasi- 
nos river, which brings down into the Korinthiac Gulf 
portions of the waters of the Aroanian and Eryman- 
thian Mountains. The monastery stands about one 
mile above the river, to the east. 

Formerly Mega Spelaeon was quite difficult of 
access. It could be reached only on foot or on horse- 
back, as no wagon-road either in ancient or in modern 
times had been cut across these Arkadian cliffs. The 
nearest centers of civilization in the late Middle Ages, 
and up to the present time, were and are the village of 
Kerpine, where the French chieftains of Charpigny 



192 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

built one of their fortresses, and which is distant by a 
walk of two hours; the town of Kalabryta, distant to 
the south more than two hours ; Korinth, sixteen hours 
away toward the rising sun; and Patrse, twelve hours 
toward the west. Now, however, a pilgrimage to 
Mega Spelseon involves no unpleasant toil of journey- 
ing whatsoever. In 1895, a military railroad was built 
through the gorge of the Erasinos, and thus easy com- 
munication now exists between Northern Arkadia and 
the Korinthiac Gulf. This railroad is of the toothed 
kind. The ascent is in some places dangerously steep, 
as can be suspected from the fact that the station in 
Kalabryta, although distant only twenty-one kilo- 
meters from the station near the gulf, is two thousand, 
one hundred, and seventy-five feet higher. The ride 
up this incline is wonderful. The train, consisting of 
an engine and one car, creeps up along its steep path, 
over high and short bridges, under overhanging ledges 
of rock, over waterfalls, through tunnels, under cliffs 
so tall that one cannot see their tops from the car at 
times, with the Erasinos rushing and surging along- 
side. Just below the monastery is a small village with 
the foreign name of Zachlorou, where the cars stop. 
Zachlorou is nineteen hundred and fifty feet high, 
although it is distant only eleven kilometers from the 
gulf. From Zachlorou to the monastery, which is 
about ten hundred and fifty feet above the station at 
an angle of about forty degrees, the ascent is made by 
donkey along a zig-zag path. About half an hour is 
required to make the ascent. 

The history of the monastery has been written by 
one of the most noted of modern scholars in the Greek 



MEGA SPEUEON 193 

church, (Ekonomos ex CEkonomon. It was published 
in the year 1840, under the title of Ktitorikon, or Pros- 
kynetarion of the Mega Spelceon, in Greek. But the 
early centuries of the history of the monastery are so 
enveloped in obscurity and pious story that they can- 
not be clearly examined. Its later history, however, 
and the part it took in the stirring events that occurred 
in Greece at the beginning of the last century, are well 
known. 

It seems probable that the original monastery was 
established on the exact site of the present one, that is, 
in the cave from which the institution takes its name. 
The custom of founding monasteries and churches in 
caves was frequent during the early and middle ages 
of Christianity. It came in part from the habit which 
the anchorites had, of not surrounding themselves with 
anything that resembled intentional luxury or even 
ease. To such men these caves afforded a natural, 
ready, and sufficient shelter. In many places through- 
out the East may be found monasteries that originated 
from a cave and a cave-dwelling anchorite. 

It is this spacious grotto, then, that furnished to the 
monastery its name of Mega Spelseon, or the Great 
Cave. Ecclesiastically it should rather be called "the 
monastery of the Assumption," since it is sacred to the 
Blessed Virgin, and celebrates with special pomp the 
feast of the fifteenth day of August in her honor. But 
the other name is the only one in official as well as in 
popular use. And a precious image of the Blessed 
Virgin, which is kept here, is known everywhere 
throughout Greece, in its copies, as the "Panagia 
Megaspelaeotissa," or the Madonna of the Great Cave. 



194 HELLADTAN VISTAS 

The cave itself is about ninety feet high and one 
hundred and eighty feet long. It is in the mountain 
side, at the foot of a towering and perpendicular face 
of solid rock that rises about five hundred feet straight 
in the air above it. It is quite deep, so that the princi- 
pal building of the monastery is entirely within the 
cave. A stone rolled from the summit of the cliff 
above will fall clear of this cavity and the monastery. 

From a distance the monastery can be seen only 
from the mountain heights west of the longitude of 
the cave. Mysteriously picturesque does it appear 
from the top of the ruined citadel of the Frankish 
knights of La Tremoille near Kalabryta, and from a 
few points along the banks of the Erasinos, especially 
from a place called "the Maiden's Fount," and from 
the higher parts of the opposite village of Zachlorou. 
But from a distance it is very difficult to find a point 
from which all the buildings are visible, because from 
most of the neighboring lookouts a portion of the 
group of curious buildings, and oftenest the principal 
one, is hidden behind some intervening mountain top. 
Most often only the old tower on the edge of the cliff 
above the monastery can be seen, the tower built as a 
defense against the Egyptian army of Ibrahim Pasha 
in 1827. 

The principal building is mostly seven stories high. 
The lower portion is built of stone and the upper 
stories of wood. Most of this stone portion is about 
four stories high; but since its various sections do not 
all begin from the same ground level it does not all 
rise to the same horizontal line at the top. Indeed one 
could easily think that irregularity in lines and lack of 



MEGA SPEL^EON 195 

symmetry were intentionally provided for by the suc- 
cessive architects of the buildings. The fagade of 
this central building forms not a straight line, but an 
irregular segment of a circle, following the contour of 
the cave. It is the custom here in Greece to cover the 
roofs of houses with brick tiles. This, however, can- 
not be done at Mega Spelseon, because in winter gi- 
gantic icicles form on the rocky side of the cliffs above, 
and fall with tremendous force upon the monastery. 
These roofs have therefore to be made of thick planks, 
capable of resisting the violence of the falling ice. 

A characteristic of the Greek is that he seldom 
makes repairs. This fact is well illustrated here at 
the monastery. Nothing after being once constructed 
is ever restored, and injured parts are never renewed 
becomingly until progressing decay necessitates com- 
plete demolition and reconstruction. Accordingly, 
the various buildings with their crooked lines and un- 
symmetrical shapes are made even more picturesque 
by their rickety and dilapidated appearance. 

In front of the monastery, toward the Erasinos, 
the higher slopes of the mountain side are all carefully 
terraced and cultivated. Vegetables and fruits are 
raised here by the monks, each of whom, assisted by 
his famulus, tills a small patch, from which he supplies 
his table. These terraces and hanging gardens are 
separated off from each other by supporting walls of 
stone and by irregular rows of trees and flowering- 
shrubbery. The walls are covered with masses of ivy 
and wild vines in most luxuriant profusion. A num- 
ber of these enchanting gardens can be seen from the 
windows of the monastery. Nightingales and other 



196 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

sweet-voiced birds fill the air with music morning and 
evening. The monks have the good quality of being 
lovers of the beauties of nature. The slovenliest of 
them will cultivate a few flowers in his garden, and 
perhaps have a song bird in his cell. Having once 
climbed to the top of the cliffs that overhang the 
monastery to the tower where Ibrahim's Egyptians 
were repulsed, I came suddenly upon a priest wearing 
cassock and kalimavki standing statue-quiet among 
the bushes, and on inquiry learned from him that his 
lonely posing was due to his watching some young 
bullfinches which had just left their nest. He had 
already caught one and had it imprisoned, chirping 
and fluttering, in the pocket of his cassock. He said 
that he wanted them for his cell, as the bullfinch is 
an excellent songster. But when I met him again, a 
few days later, he hastened to tell me with sorrow 
that his prisoners of melodious hopes had died. 

The story which the monks narrate as to why this 
site was selected for a monastery is that within the 
cave an image of the Madonna was discovered by a 
native shepherdess of Zachlorou, a pious girl named 
Evphrosyne, and that in consequence of this discovery- 
two monks from Thessalonike, Saints Symeon and 
Theodoros, built a church and cells in the cave, and 
took up their abode in it. That the monastery is ex- 
tremely ancient is beyond all doubt. And the tradition 
which asserts that it was founded by these two saints 
in the fourth century is perhaps not widely incorrect. 
The tradition is confirmed by the office which the 
monks sing in memory of its reputed founders, 
Symeon and Theodoros, who along with Evphrosyne 



MEGA SPEUEON 197 

are commemorated as local saints on October 18. 
Archaeological methods of reasoning bring the re- 
searcher back toward that period. And since the fourth 
century saw monasteries founded in many other parts 
of the Christian world, we do not yield much to tradi- 
tion by not positively rejecting for the origin of Mega 
Spelseon a date so early. 

In the year 1641, a terrible conflagration visited the 
monastery and consumed everything — the buildings, 
the church, the library, and the archives. Nothing of 
importance within the buildings escaped the flames 
except the image of the Madonna, which the monks 
carried off to a place of safety. This annihilation of 
all older monuments and the destruction of the records 
is what renders the early history of the monastery so 
obscure. Fortunately a few important documents 
were saved because they happened to be kept at that 
time, not in the monastery, but in one of its various 
"metochia" or succursals. Among these were three 
golden imperial bulls from Constantinople. 

Documents have been preserved which show that 
the church which was reduced to ashes by the con- 
flagration of 1 64 1 had been rebuilt or renewed from 
still older foundations in the year 1285 with money 
sent from Constantinople by the emperor Andronikos 
II. One might suppose that since the Peloponnesos 
was at that time under the rule of the Franks, it was 
strange for an emperor of Constantinople to become 
the benefactor of a monastery within their dominions. 
But there could not have been much difficulty in doing 
so, for Villeharduin and his successors, who since the 
Fourth Crusade in 1204 held most of the Peloponnesos, 



198 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

never cut the church of their Greek subjects loose from 
Byzantine influence. The gift of Andronikos need 
indicate no imperial sway over the country. And 
moreover at that time the emperor could hope for the 
return of the Peloponnesos to his dominions, for it 
was just then very carelessly governed from the West. 
It had lately been added to the possessions of Charles 
of Anjou, king of Naples. The king of Naples died 
in this year, and his successor, Charles II, was a pris- 
oner in the hands of the king of Aragon. And his 
viceroy, Robert, provided temporarily for the Pelopon- 
nesos by placing it under the care of the duke of 
Athens, Guillaume de la Roche. But Guillaume had 
nearer and more vital interests in his own dukedom, 
and the Frankish possessions of the Peloponnesos 
were open to continual attacks from the garrisons cf 
the Byzantine forts of Monembasia and Lakedaemon. 
It is also well known that Andronikos was a religious 
man. He followed the views of those that had opposed 
the ikonoklasts, being in favor of the images, and 
therefore would be well disposed toward a monastery 
where was venerated a picture of the Madonna reputed 
to be from the hand of the apostle St. Luke. He also 
sent to the monastery one of the three golden bulls 
mentioned above. 

The Megaspelaeots, after this fire of 1641, immedi- 
ately set about rebuilding the church and monastery. 
Within the following year a good portion of the work 
was completed. And in the year 1653, the church, 
which had already been entirely rebuilt, was frescoed, 
as is shown by an inscription over the great door of 
the narthex. 



MEGA SPEL^ON 199 

This new church, which dates from 1641, is a good 
specimen of the late Byzantine style of ecclesiastical 
architecture. The church is not visible from without, 
as it is on the third floor of the principal building, and 
has no separate fagade of its own. The main part 
of the church is in the form of a square, in the middle 
of which four pillars support a beautiful dome. As 
is usual in the East, the sanctuary is separated from 
the body of the church by a wall called the ikonosta- 
sion. Three doorways lead through the ikonostasion 
from the body of the church into the sanctuary. This 
ikonostasion is extremely rich, being of wood intri- 
cately carved and covered with gold. When looking 
at it one cannot fail to recall the luxurious rococo 
ornamentations so much favored by the Jesuits in 
Italy and other parts of Europe. The ikonostasion 
receives its name from the fact that it is decorated 
with the ikons or images of Christ as King of Kings, 
the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles, St. John the Baptist, 
and the patron saints of the church. 

To the right of the worshipers, in this ikonosta- 
sion is the great treasure of the monastery, the image 
already mentioned, the Madonna which was saved 
from the fire of 1641, and which the tradition of the 
monks attributes to the hand of St. Luke. It is not 
a painting on canvas or on a flat surface, but is a 
carved image in high relief, made of wood and rep- 
resenting the Virgin holding the Child in her lap. It 
is probably a very old work. That it was, however, 
made by the apostle is merely a bit of pious credulity 
which adds to the income as well as to the fame of the 
monastery. The image is covered with a kind of wax, 



200 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

which the monks profess to know to be mastic. It 
has become very black with age and with the smoke 
of incense. The image may possibly be technically 
classed with those called "kerochyt," and finished by 
a process called "kerographia." 

The decorations of the church of Mega Spelseon 
are rich and heavy. The effect is added to by the fact 
that the overhanging cave shuts out almost all the 
light of day from the little windows in the dome, al- 
lowing the church to be illuminated only by the 
softened light which streams in from the narthex 
through the open doorway, and by the candles and 
olive-oil lamps that burn in front of the ikons. The 
walls are one solid mass of frescoes in heavy colors. 
These frescoes represent prophets and apostles and 
martyrs and saints and holy persons hundreds in 
number, who seem in the dimness to be standing be- 
hind the stalls of the monks and listening with 
mysterious attention to the chants of the Holy Office. 
In the middle of the floor beneath the dome is carved 
in marble the two-headed eagle of the emperors of 
Byzantion, which the tsars of Russia have appro- 
priated. It may be seen in many Greek temples of im- 
portance that were built while the Greek church here 
was subject to Constantinople. The entrance into the 
main portion of the church from the outside narthex 
is through a doorway which is closed by two massive 
doors of brass, made in 1805. They are covered with 
figures and groups of figures in low relief, not of good 
but of pleasing art. Outside of these gates is the 
outer narthex, or vestibule, where those who come to 
visit the church may sit till the doors be opened. 



MEGA SPEL^ON 201 

Besides this church there are several small chapels. 
The church is called "katholikon," or "katholikos 
naos," because into it gather the "entire" community 
for such services as are intended for "all." The 
smaller chapels are five in number, one of them being 
sacred to St. Luke, as the painter of the miraculous 
image, and another to St. Evphrosyne, to whom the 
place of the hidden image was revealed. Sick persons 
are often brought to the monastery to be relieved of 
their sufferings, and are placed in the chapel of Saint 
Evphrosyne. It is so small that no more than three or 
four persons can enter it at once. As a rule these 
chapels are used only when more than one mass is to 
be said; for, according to the canons of the eastern 
church, not more than one mass may be celebrated at 
the same altar on the same day. Such a necessity, 
however, is not so very frequent. For the priests 
usually celebrate mass only when they have "inten- 
tions." 

This monastery of Mega Spelseon belongs to the 
class called "stavropegiac." Stavropegiac churches 
and monasteries are entirely independent of the au- 
thority of the bishop and other local ecclesiastical 
authority in the diocese where they are established. 
They depend directly on the patriarch of Constanti- 
nople. The local bishop cannot interfere in the 
appointment of the abbot, in the admission of novices, 
or in the administration of the property of the monas- 
tery. Nor is he specially commemorated in the office 
and mass. But these privileges are here in Greece 
now merely an empty historic title, for shortly after 
the establishment of the kingdom of Greece the church 



202 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

was declared to be independent of the patriarch, and 
Constantinople now has no authority whatsoever over 
this and other such monasteries. 

In consequence of its fame and high protection, 
Mega Spelseon became very wealthy. By legacies and 
other gifts it came into possession of property in every 
part of the Hellenic world, in European Turkey, in 
Asia Minor, and in North Greece, besides its numerous 
possessions in the Peloponnesos. This wealth and 
property were secured to it repeatedly by imperial and 
patriarchal bulls. A number of the later patri- 
archal bulls referring to the monastery and its 
property are still in existence and are kept in the 
library. Of the imperial bulls only one is still in the 
possession of the monastery, that of John Kanta- 
kouzen, written in 6856 anno mundi, that is, 1348 after 
Christ. 

Peculiar circumstances later occasioned the loss of 
two of these imperial bulls. In 1684, the Republic of 
Venice declared war anew against the sultan; and her 
armies, under the leadership of Morosini, succeeded in 
liberating the entire Peloponnesos from his yoke. By 
the treaty of Carlovitz in 1699, the Peloponnesos was 
accordingly declared to be a Venetian possession. This 
new change of masters occasioned disputes as to the 
legal ownership of certain lands which the monastery 
claimed. And, to vindicate their rights, the monks in 
the year 1713 sent, for inspection and confirmation, 
to the government of the doges three imperial bulls 
in order that the republic might renew the privileges 
therein granted. Venice, however, did not pay much 
attention to the affair, probably foreseeing that her 



MEGA SPEL^ON 203 

hold on the Peloponnesos was but temporary, and that 
it would not seriously benefit either the monasteries 
or Venice to restudy the questions at issue, as the 
possessions in dispute were liable at any time to fall 
again under Turkish rule. And in fact war soon broke 
out afresh. Then Zacchseos, the monk who had 
brought the bulls to Venice, returned to his monastery 
so as to be with it in the dangers of war. In his hurry 
to depart from Venice he deposited the bulls with one 
of the secretaries of the Venetian government. The 
result of this war was that in 171 5 the grand vizier Ali 
Koumourtzi had easily reconquered all of the Pelopon- 
nesos. After peace was restored, the monks, being 
no longer subjects of Venice, asked for the return of 
their valuable parchments. The request was not 
readily complied with. And after much delay they 
were glad to recover the latest of the three, that of 
Kantakouzen; but even from this one the golden 
medallion or seal had been removed. Where this me- 
dallion now is, as well as the fate of the other two 
bulls, is not known. 

The wealth of the monastery was so great that not 
many years ago the income annually was more than 
four hundred thousand dollars. This made a yearly 
allowance for each monk of about fourteen hundred 
dollars. In those days the number of monks ap- 
proached to three hundred. Now they are not more 
than one hundred and fifty. Of late years the entire 
income is not greater than perhaps twenty thousand 
dollars. There is no way of discovering the exact 
sum, although the abbot and counselors are supposed 
to render to the government a detailed account every 



204 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

year. There has, however, undoubtedly been a great 
decrease in the revenues of the monastery, both be- 
cause it has gradually lost much of the property that 
it possessed outside of the Peloponnesos, and also 
because of the increasing laziness of the monks. The 
government of Greece, which is always hard pressed 
for funds, taxes this and all other monasteries quite 
severely, making it necessary for the monks either to 
become industrious or else to suffer somewhat by pri- 
vation. Most of the monks prefer the second of the 
two evils. 

A great portion of monastic property has been con- 
fiscated. Indeed it is quite probable that the govern- 
ment would mercilessly confiscate all valuable monastic 
property, were it not that by doing so it would com- 
mit the diplomatic blunder of giving the example to 
the sultan. In Turkey there is a great deal of property 
in the possession of the Greek monasteries. And these 
monasteries in Turkey have not lost their usefulness 
to Greece and the Hellenic cause. It is to the interest 
of Greece to be solicitous that the monasteries within 
Turkish territory be not interfered with by the gov- 
ernment of the sultan. And therefore it cannot give 
the example of high-handed confiscation of similar 
property at home. Still confiscation quietly does go 
on. The ground on which stands the American School 
of Classical Studies in Athens once belonged to the 
Monastery of the Angels. Mega Spelseon, however, 
will not be confiscated, for the entire nation would 
deplore such an act. 

The life of the anchorite has always had a great 
fascination for the Christian Greek. And monasteries 



MEGA SPELtEON 205 

have always been numerous in Greek lands. In Turk- 
ish times they were in many respects useful. The 
monasteries then were places where more or less of 
Greek and Christian learning was diffused and where 
Christians could occasionally assemble and feel that 
they were not under the eyes of spies. The monks 
continued to care for the treasures of literary antiq- 
uity, or at least to sell them to Europeans, thus pre- 
venting their complete loss. Ambitious men became 
monks because few other professions then brought any 
kind of personal security together with a little honor. 
The Turks nearly always respected the monks. 

The Greek church has almost ceased to be a teacher. 
She no longer can be regarded as laboring intelligently 
in directing or forming the morals of the people. She 
presents herself to the Greek as a serious and energetic 
authority in no other domain than that of religion 
and religious rites. Every historian knows that at 
times there exists a divorce between morals and re- 
ligion, and that people become careless or unaware of 
the connection between the two. The Greek is not 
a bad man by any means, but it is not evident that he 
owes his virtue to his church. The Greek who be- 
comes a novice in a monastery is attracted not so much 
by the morality of monastic life as by its religiousness. 
It may happen that he brings with him only the most 
ordinary virtues, and all of these he is by no means sure 
either of cultivating or of increasing. 

At Mega Spelaeon each monk may, if he chooses, 
keep under his direction one or more young boys, who, 
after reaching the age of twenty-five years and spend- 
ing three years in their patron's service as novices, may 



206 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

receive tonsure and become monks. The monastery 
as such rarely accepts novices. But the individual 
monks, as individuals, according to their own abso- 
lutely free choice, take these boys, who, known as 
"hypotaktikoi," that is "famuli," act as servants to 
their patron, and at the same time learn how to live 
a monastic life. They also often become the inheritors 
of his personal property. A not entirely unfounded 
belief prevails that sometimes these famuli have 
reasons by paternity as well as by this spiritual adop- 
tion to be regarded as the proper heirs of their patrons. 
The monks of Mega Spelaeon belong to the class 
called "idorrythmic." As such they are to be dis- 
tinguished from those others of the "koenobiac" type. 
Koenobiac monks live a life in common. All are under 
the direction of the abbot and the council, and must 
labor for the common good of the monastery, accord- 
ing to the will of their superiors. All eat at the same 
table. Food as well as clothing and other necessities 
are supplied from the common funds of the monastery. 
The idorrythmic life, however, is very different. Each 
member of the community is to a great degree inde- 
pendent. He is indeed subject to certain general regu- 
lations, but can direct and employ most of his life as 
he wishes. At Mega Spelaeon each monk receives 
from the common income and property of the mon- 
astery an amount of bread and wine and cheese suffi- 
cient for his support and that of his famulus. A small 
garden is also allotted to him in which he raises fruits 
and vegetables and salads for his table. He eats in 
his own cell, attended by his famulus, who prepares 
his food. There is no common table whatsoever. 



MEGA SPEIJEON 207 

Since wine and bread are common property, each 
monk is obliged to be ready to assist, either he or his 
famulus, in the cultivating of the fields that produce 
the wheat, in the irrigating of these fields and the vine- 
yards, in the harvesting of the wheat, and the gather- 
ing and pressing of the grapes. But as most of the 
lands are tilled by hired men or are pacted out to 
farmers, these labors occupy but a small fraction of 
the monks' time. If a Megaspelseot holds any office 
in the monastery or performs any duties other than 
those mentioned he receives a proportionate salary. 
The religious exercises in the church go on regularly, 
but the monks may attend or not almost as they please. 
And surely except on Sundays or feast days they are 
absent much more frequently than they are present. 

The bread and wine and cheese, which are doled 
out free to all, are produced from the farms and vine- 
yards and pasture lands of the monastery. In the 
wine cellar there are two famous old wine casks called 
"Stamates" and "Vangeles." Stamates holds twelve 
thousand okes, or nearly four thousand gallons. Van- 
geles formerly was much larger than Stamates, but 
one end of the cask decayed and had to be sawed off, 
so that Vangeles now contains only nine thousand 
okes, or somewhat less than three thousand gallons. 

Monastic life in the East, as in the West, has been 
carefully legislated for in detail by the canons of 
various general and local councils, and these canons 
have been explained and amplified by the regulations 
of the greater and model monasteries, especially those 
on Mount Athos. The rules of these model mon- 
asteries are known in the East as the canons of St. 



208 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

Basil, and all monks in Greek countries are regarded 
as being "Basilian." But these careful rules now exist 
for the Megaspelaeot. as for other Greek monastic 
communities, rather in theory than in daily applica- 
tion. Perhaps the only regulations which they rarely 
violate are those concerning fasting. And this is to 
us the more remarkable, as the fasts in the Greek 
church are exceedingly severe. The monks, like a 
good portion of other Greek Christians, observe four 
separate lents every year, namely the quadrigesimal 
fast of winter which they keep in common with the 
Catholics, a lent of two weeks before the feast of the 
Twelve Apostles which is celebrated on June 30, 
another of two weeks before the Assumption of the 
Blessed Virgin in August, and one of four weeks 
during the Advent of Christmas. These are all lents 
of very severe abstinence rather than of fast. Be- 
sides, the monks never fail to abstain similarly on all 
the remaining Wednesdays and Fridays of the year, 
avoiding all use of meat, fish, eggs, butter, cheese, 
and oil. 

The management of the community has at its head 
the hegoumenos, or abbot. Among all the abbots of 
the monasteries of Greece he of Mega Spelaeon ranks 
first. He is a mitered abbot and has the privilege of 
carrying a crosier and of wearing robes similar to 
those of a bishop. He is elected for a period of 
five years, the monks of the monastery being the 
electors. Their choice, however, must be confirmed 
by the Holy Synod at Athens. Only such monks as 
have lived for six years in the monaster}' can have a 
vote in this election. The privilege of electing the 



MEGA SPEL^ON 209 

abbot is conceded not only to Mega Spelaeon, but to 
all monasteries where the number of monks is more 
than six. Where there are not six monks the abbot 
is appointed directly by the Synod at Athens. 

In the management of affairs the abbot is assisted 
by two counselors, who with the abbot constitute a 
body called the "hegoumeno-symboulion." In case 
this body fails to arrive at a decision in regard to 
important matters, they call to their assistance such of 
the monks as have been previously abbots, and others 
who belong to the category of "gerontoteroi." The 
ex-abbots are usually two or three in number, and are 
known as "prohegoumenoi." The gerontoteroi are 
the aged monks that have spent a long and edifying 
life in the monastery. And if this larger body cannot 
settle the difficulties, then another class of monks 
called the "senators" is summoned to take part in the 
deliberations. The senators are monks of good stand- 
ing who have arrived at the age of forty-five. What- 
ever be the decision of this congress consisting of 
abbot, counselors, ex-abbots, gerontoteroi, and sena- 
tors, it is final. There is no higher authority within 
the monastery. 

The monastery possesses quite a valuable library. 
It contains about twenty manuscripts of the gospels. 
Of these the oldest one is written on parchment and 
dates from the eleventh century. The others are not 
so old. There are also specimens of rare editions of 
the classics and old editions of the fathers. These 
books and manuscripts are chiefly gifts. How in- 
teresting so ever they be to the bibliophile or to the 
palaeographist or antiquarian, they have but little 



210 HBLLADIAN VISTAS 

value, comparatively, as books for an ordinary library 
and for daily use. This fact is immediately evident 
to anyone who visits the library, in spite of the re- 
peated assertion of the librarian that the monks are 
very fond of reading. The monastery buys no new 
books as a rule. Individual monks may in this matter, 
as in others, follow their own inclination. The printed 
books in the library are mostly ecolesiastical and 
theological. Besides serving as a library, this room 
is a general cabinet of historical relics and curiosities. 
There are miters of mediaeval bishops, crosiers, 
jeweled crosses, relics of saints, rich old vestments, 
vellum manuscripts, patriarchal bulls, in profusion and 
confusion. 

In general it may be said that just as real holiness 
is not much in vogue among the monks, so also is deep 
learning a lost art. A number of novices from Mega 
Spelaeon have been sent to the higher schools to study ; 
and at present there may be counted at least a score 
of Megaspelseots who have taken a course in theology 
or philology. Nearly all of these have studied in the 
University of Athens, a few of them in Germany. 
But after completing their studies, if they receive no 
appointment calling* them to labor as priests in some 
foreign mission, or as teachers or professors in 
schools, they quickly forget their scientific habits and 
lose their inclination to study. Mega Spelaeon, how- 
ever, has good men engaged in professional duties 
outside of the monastery. Several of the bishops of 
Greece are from Mega Spelaeon, including the Metro- 
politan of Athens, the head of the Hellenic church. 

The monastery has always been a popular shrine 



MEGA SPEL^ON 21 1 

for pilgrims. They come so frequently and regularly 
that the monastery provides special "xenons" or hotels 
for them. No visitor is entirely excluded from the 
hospitality of the monastery. These pilgrims go there 
to light a candle before the image of the Madonna, 
or to perform some other religious act, or have a 
mass said, or make a confession and receive Holy 
Communion. Many come in consequence of a vow, 
having promised that if certain hopes of theirs be 
fulfilled, they would make a pilgrimage to the mon- 
astery. One can often see such people, especially 
peasants and women, performing these pilgrimages 
barefooted, through a desire to do penance. 

But also a number of persons go to Mega Spelseon 
simply to enjoy the pleasant outing. There are two 
"xenons," one for the poorer and the other for the 
richer visitors. Those that have relations or friends 
among the monks, especially if they be friends of the 
abbot, are taken to private rooms and entertained 
elaborately. All visitors must arrive before sunset, 
as at that time the outer gates are barred, and it would 
be difficult to get near enough to persuade the man in 
authority to open them. Likewise all weapons must 
be left with the watchman at the entrance gate. This 
is a relic of the days of Turkish sway. 

In Turkish times the monastery, on account of the 
protection which its sacredness afforded to the 
"rajahs," was regarded as a proper place for the 
Christians to meet once every year and hold a kind of 
fair, each visitor bringing whatever he had to sell and 
purchasing such objects as he had need of. Little 
merchants from afar came and exposed their wares 



212 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

and trinkets. But after the wars of liberation were 
over this practice was discontinued and the fair was 
transferred to the neighboring town of Kalabryta, 
where it is still held annually, at the same time of the 
year, the week preceding the feast of the Assumption, 
in August. At Mega Spelaeon, however, the name 
still remains attached to a hill in front of the mon- 
astery, called "the hill of the fair," and on its top is 
a chapel called the "Madonna of the fair" or the 
"Panegyri stria." 

The monks of Mega Spelseon on account of the 
manner in which they are recruited are from among 
the people of the neighboring provinces of Achaia, 
Arkadia, and Korinthia. Being children of the people, 
they have always sympathized with the struggles of 
the people, and this at times when it was a sacrifice 
to do so. When in the year 1819 the Philike Hetaeria, 
which had been organized in Odessa in 18 14, and 
whose object was the liberation of the Christians of 
the East from Moslem rule, began to be more freely 
propagated in the Peloponnesos, Hierotheos, the abbot 
of Mega Spelaeon, together with three other monks, 
was among the noted Peloponnesians that joined the 
society. And after the patriotic convention of the 
leading Christians at ^Egion, five hours distant from 
the monastery, this Philotheos, being regarded as one 
of the most reliable and patriotic priests of the Greeks, 
was commissioned to travel through the Peloponnesos 
and communicate with the other rajahs and prepare 
them for the approaching strife by giving advice and 
collecting funds. 

On account of its impregnable position the mon- 



MEGA SPEL^ON 213 

astery was a frequent place of refuge for many during 
the awful wars of annihilation from 1821 to 1828. 
In 1 82 1, at the outbreak of the struggle, when the 
Christians massacred the unfortunate Turks of Lan- 
gadia, Kanellos Delegiannes, one of the most promi- 
nent Christians of that town, hurried his wife and 
children off to Mega Spelseon, in order that he might 
feel more at ease in fighting for his country. Like- 
wise the family of the old hero Zaimes took refuge 
here more than once. 

In spite of the benefits conferred on the cause of the 
Christians by the monastery and monks, it escaped all 
serious damage from the Turks. Only in the last 
year of the war, in 1827, was it threatened with im- 
pending destruction ; but the danger was averted. The 
sultan of Turkey failing of being able either to sup- 
press or annihilate the Christians, after six years of 
fire and sword and assassination, called to his aid the 
bloody Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, offering him the 
country in fief if he could subdue it. Ibrahim came 
with an army of Arabs and destroyed everything in 
his way. In July of 1827 he came to Kalabryta, three 
hours distant from the monastery. He was full of 
triumph, for he had captured and destroyed the im- 
mortal town of Mesolonghion, had ravaged and 
burned most of the Peloponnesos, and had made many 
of the rajahs kiss his hand in submission. He brought 
an army of fifteen thousand men against the mon- 
astery. But Kolokotrones had by his wonderful skill 
succeeded in sending a band of his palikars there, who, 
uniting their strength to that of the monks, formed a 
defending body of about six hundred men. They 



214 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

dragged two or three old cannon to the top of the rock 
above the monastery, located them in the fort there, 
and prepared to resist. 

Ibrahim to save himself the trip to the monastery 
sent three successive letters calling their attention to 
his proximity, to his large army and his artillery, and 
advising them to surrender and acknowledge his 
authority. According to a copy preserved in the mon- 
astery, the answer of the monks was as follows : 

Most high ruler of the army of the Othmans, hail. We have 
received your note, and we are aware of what you mention. 
We know that you are as near as the fields of Kalabryta, and 
that you have all the means of war. But for us to submit to 
you cannot be done, because we are under oath by our faith 
either to get free or to die in war; and according to our belief 
it is not right to break our holy oath to our country. We 
advise you to go and fight somewhere else. Because if you 
come here and conquer us the misfortune will not be very great, 
as you will merely rout some priests. But if you be kept at 
bay, as we surely expect with the help of God, because we have 
a good position, it will be a blame to you, and then the Greeks 
will take heart and will hunt you down from all sides. This is 
our advice ; look you to your interests like a knowing man. We 
have a letter from the Boule and from General Kolokotrones that 
he will under all circumstances send us palikars and food, and 
we will soon all be free men or will die true to our holy oath 
of country. 

Damaskenos the abbot, and the priests and monks with 
me. June 21, 1827. 

Kolokotrones' aid-de-camp Chrysanthopoulos com- 
manded the monks and palikars that defended the 
monastery. For two days did Ibrahim rage against 
it with infantry and artillery and cavalry. But he had 
to withdraw, concluding that the monastery was im- 



MEGA SPEL^ON 215 

pregnable by its position and its defenders. He went 
back to Arkadia to continue his devastations elsewhere. 
Two months later his ships were sunk in the harbor of 
Navarino by the united fleets of Europe, and the 
Greeks were free. 

Otho loved the monks of Mega Spelseon. Twelve 
of them did he especially honor, and with his own 
hands pinned the medals for bravery on their breasts. 
The room is still shown at Mega Spelseon where he 
slept. And the monks still love to tell of how he 
hugged some of the old heroes that had fought in the 
war of liberation; for many of the older monks still 
remember the great-hearted king, Otho the Bavarian. 



THE GAMES AT OLYMPIA 

From a racial point of view, what constitutes 
a people? This is a mere academic question which, 
if solved, would bear no strong influence on our public 
life. Men are today catalogued not generally by the 
race from which they trace their descent, but rather 
by the state whose power controls and protects them. 
Such words as "fatherland" and "Irishman" could not 
be created today, with their original strength and sig- 
nificance. Following the example of the Romans, we 
are citizens or subjects of our respective governments, 
and nothing else. And when we wage successful war 
we now fight, not for "our altars and our fires, and 
the graves of our ancestors," but for the political ideas 
of our government. 

The ties which bind us together into a powerful 
unit, into a state, are very different from the liens 
which kept the old Greeks in touch with each other. 
The Greeks were indeed united, just as closely as are 
the citizens of any modern state, but the union was 
of a totally different kind. To the mind of the Greek, 
the existence of any voluntary subjection which would 
make him humbler than having to submit to the laws 
and regulations of one sole city was not logically tol- 
erable. According to the best Greek teaching, no gov- 
ernment might reasonably extend beyond the fields that 
surround each city. The "polity" or city-state, as the 
Greek "polis" has been translated, was to their minds 
the only philosophical form of governmental power. 

216 



THE GAMES AT OLYMPIA 217 

Accordingly, when under Makedonic inspiration, great 
states were created by conquest, the subjects were for 
the most part not Greeks but "barbarians." Indeed the 
old Greeks did not have in their language a word cor- 
responding to the expression "state." And when in the 
last century their descendants, the Romsean Greeks of 
today, gained their independence and organized them- 
selves into a state, they had to adapt an old word to 
the new idea, and their little state is called a "Kratos." 
One of the characteristics that heighten the resemblance 
between the present inhabitants of Hellas and their 
classic ancestors is the immense pride which they feel 
for their race and descent and native towns, and their 
comparative lack of sympathy for a powerful and 
widely extended state. This is one potent reason why 
the Greeks have not succeeded in uniting all the peoples 
of the Balkans into one great commonwealth, under 
Hellenic leadership. Phyletic union is certainly nobler 
than the equality of fellow subjection. But statedom 
is now required as a condition for racial existence. 

Racial union among the old Greeks, based on the 
belief that they were all descended from the same stock, 
and were therefore all of kindred blood, manifested 
itself in various ways. They spoke all of them the 
same language, a fact which then was much more re- 
markable than such a phenomenon would be today. 
They worshiped the same or similar gods, for their 
religious and cosmological ideas were the same. Their 
common religion was perhaps one of their strongest 
bonds of union. They came together and celebrated 
periodical panegyrics at the more noted shrines of 
their common deities. At these meetings they also 



218 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

often settled disputes existing between neighboring 
tribes. Thus were established the well-known "am- 
phiktionic assemblies" or courts whose function it was 
to decide political and religious and similar other 
questions that were of general interest. At the pane- 
gyrics they also indulged in their love for physical 
sports and athletic emulation, and thus were established 
the great national contests, such as those at Delphi, 
Korinth, Nemea, and Olympia, where, after perform- 
ing the religious ceremonies due to the gods, they 
turned themselves to manly rivalry in the primitive 
sports of running and leaping or hurling the spear 
and throwing the diskos. 

Of all such noted games, those celebrated at 
Olympia were then the most universally patronized, 
and ever since have been most honored by the memory 
of posterity. Here it was that the idea of Hellenic 
unity most forcibly and largely presented itself. And 
when some leading men began to think that Hellenism 
could not continue to be supreme unless it convert 
itself into a great political power, into a kind of con- 
federated league of city-states, it was from here that 
patriotic orators like Isokrates wished to imagine that 
their views in this respect had been expounded, and 
that here they had delivered their imaginary orations 
before audiences composed of men from all parts of 
the civilized world. 

For the Greeks in general the chief motive that 
brought them together at Olympia was the desire to 
witness the gymnastic and hippie contests. Never- 
theless Olympia was more essentially a religious shrine 
than an arena for sports. The daily worship of the 



THE GAMES AT OLYMPIA 219 

gods continued here uninterrupted, while the games 
took place only at intervals of four years. Religious 
worship was instituted earliest, and the contests were 
added later. A portion of the Olympiac field, the 
holiest part, was reserved exclusively for the shrines 
and altars of the gods and heroes. This was the Altis 
or Sacred Grove. Not even the priests who ministered 
to these deities might reside within this wall-sur- 
rounded precinct. The learned tourist Pavsanias 
mentions many of the altars within the Altis. He 
enumerates more than thirty-five. On all of these 
altars the priests of Elis performed sacrificial worship 
at least once in every month. Their ceremonies were 
according to an antique ritual. At the grand altar of 
Zevs and at the hearth of Hestia the solemn rites were 
performed every day. 

Olympia was not a city. It was not even a town. 
No inhabitants permanently resided there save the 
priests and their attendants. It was a vast sanctuary. 
During most of the ages whose events are recorded 
in Peloponnesian history, the territory within which 
lay the sanctuary belonged to the city of Elis which 
stood about twenty miles distant. The men of Elis 
usually had the sanctuary under their control. The 
priests were citizens of Elis, as were all of the other 
men of authority who directed the contests and rites. 
Olympia was a noble vista of temples and shrines and 
altars and statues and votive offerings and agonistic 
arenas. It lay in a small plain east of where the swift 
Kladaos throws its noisy waters into the silvery 
Alpheios. The plain is inclosed on all sides save the 



220 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

west by low mountains which are the last outrunners 
of the high ranges of Arkadia. 

How this site came to be chosen for these pan- 
Hellenic contests no tradition knows; yet many are 
the mythic stories that undertake to supply this defect 
in history. Like Delphi, the primitive glory of 
Olympia was partly due to prophetic information that 
used to be distributed to worshipers here. At the shrine 
of Zevs the pious and tremorous men of aforetime 
could get mystifying glimpses into the obscure region 
of futurity. Among the oldest shrines seem to have 
been those of Zevs and Earth, and Hera. Later came 
the erecting of gorgeous temples on the sites of these 
primitive shrines. Of those temples whose remains 
can still be traced among the debris of Olympia, the 
most primitive is that of Hera. Seven hundred years 
before Christ this Herseon already existed. So sacred 
was it regarded that it was never torn down, although 
built of wood; but occasionally, as portions of the 
wooden building decayed, repairs were made with 
masonry. Thus by degrees the original wooden 
structure was turned into a more permanent one of 
stone. But one hundred and fifty years after Christ, 
one of the original wooden columns still was in its 
place. It had not yet decayed to such an extent as to 
have been necessarily removed. 

This primitive temple contained a primitive cult- 
statue. But it also contained newer works. Within 
it Pavsanias saw a statue of Hermes which had been 
made by the master-hand of Praxiteles. The excava- 
tions made by German archaeologs found the statue 
lying in the earth within the ruins of the temple, in 



THE GAMES AT OLYMPIA 221 

front of the base on which it had originally been 
erected. It is thus clearly authenticated as being a 
genuine work of the great sculptor, and as there are 
but few such originals, it is highly prized. This 
Hermes and the beautiful statue of Victory which came 
from the chisel of Pseonios, justly form the pride of 
the rich museum at Olympia. 

The noblest fane in the holy Altis was the colossal 
House of Zevs, a Doric structure of poros stone, two 
hundred and thirty feet in length, surrounded by 
massive columns, and ornamented in its metopes and 
gables by plaques and groups of archaic statuary. In 
the metopes were represented various exploits of 
Herakles, the strong hero, because myth asserted that 
he had visited Olympia and had contested there. In 
the front gable of the temple was the legendary chariot- 
race between CEnomaos and Pelops, whereby Pelops 
won Hippodameia as his bride. CEnomaos had prom- 
ised his daughter to him who would outrun her father 
in a chariot race. This feat did Pelops accomplish 
though thirteen before him had tried and failed, and 
had forfeited their life as a result of their failure. 

Within this temple was the proudest ornament of 
Olympia, the statue of Zevs, which Pheidias of Athens 
had constructed entirely of gold and ivory. When 
asked what model he proposed to follow in making 
this statue, Pheidias said that he intended to express 
the lines of the Iliad where Zevs is described as giving 
irrevocable assent to a prayer made to him by Achilles' 
mother : 

As thus he spake, the son of Saturn gave 

The nod with his dark brows. The ambrosial curls 



222 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

Upon the sovereign One's immortal head 
Were shaken, and with them the mighty mount 
Olympos trembled. 

So magnificent was this colossal statue of gold and 
ivory, almost forty feet high, and so majestic did it 
appear that when he had finished it Pheidias prayed 
to the great father of the gods to reveal his pleasure 
if he was satisfied with Pheidias' work. Thereupon 
did Zevs from the heavens thunder his approval, and 
hurled a saluting lightning-stroke to indicate his ac- 
ceptance of the sculptor's creation. In front of this 
statue hung in the second century after Christ an 
ancient curtain of oriental workmanship, a piece of art 
worthy of this statue and this temple. It is not en- 
tirely improbable that this splendid piece of tapestry 
was the curtain which had once been the veil of the 
temple of Yahweh in Sion, and which had been con- 
fiscated by the plundering king of Syria, Antiochos 
Epiphanes. What became of the gold-ivory Zevs of 
Pheidias is unknown. Toward the end of the fourth 
century of our era it seems to have been brought to 
Constantinople, and may have been placed in the palace 
of Lausus. This palace was destroyed by fire in 
the year 475, and thus the statue may have perished. 

Outside of the Holy Grove were many other build- 
ings and monuments; treasure-houses of different 
Hellenic cities, bathing establishments, the prytaneion 
where the priests and other functionaries had their 
rendezvous and where public guests and the victors 
were officially entertained, votive memorials from 
kings and potentates, solitary columns, innumerable 
statues of marble and bronze and occasionally of 



THE GAMES AT OLYMPIA 223 

costlier material such as electrum or ivory. Such was 
Olympia. 

Long centuries ago the buildings of Olympia were 
overturned by earthquakes, and the sand from the 
Kladaos gradually covered up most of the ruins. 
Olympia lay buried. About two centuries ago the 
learned Benedictine priest Montfaucon conceived the 
hope that Olympia might be unearthed. He wrote to 
the Latin archbishop of Kerkyra, Cardinal Quirini, 
advising him to make excavations, and especially rec- 
ommending this site as a place where research would 
be richly rewarded. The learned Benedictine's advice 
did not have much effect. Later Winckelmann, the 
pioneer student of ancient art, attempted to awaken 
enthusiasm for the recovery of what the debris and 
alluvium at Olympia were hiding. In 1829, the archae- 
ologists of the French scientific expedition to the Pel- 
oponnesos began excavations, but soon were forced to 
stop. In 1875, the German government received from 
Greece the permission to uncover what remained of 
Olympia. The work was immediately begun, and was 
ended in 1881. The results have been honorable to 
Germany, and satisfactory to scholars, as can be seen 
by a visit to the ruins of Olympia and the adjacent 
museum, or by reading the magnificent volumes which 
the German savants that conducted the work have 
published. 

Our knowledge of the nature of the contests that 
here attracted visitors from all the Hellenic world is 
based both on literary sources and on the results of the 
German excavations. The contests were in origin 
such as became a sturdy primitive people, a people 



224 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

where such men as had not bodies fit for raids and 
tribal war were rather cumbersome on the community. 
The contests were almost exclusively gymnic and 
equestrian. Literary and musical contests took place 
elsewhere in Greece, but not at Olympia. Nevertheless 
how could Greeks entirely exclude the intellectual 
even from their most savage practices? Though 
not a part of the official program literary feats 
were intermingled with the feats of bodily prowess. 
Here Herodotos read his wonderful history to appre- 
ciative audiences. Here the proud and invincible 
sophist Gorgias appeared in his most gorgeous aca- 
demic gown and showed the eminence of his rhetorical 
art by demonstrative harangues. 

These contests, although beginning from uncouth 
physical acts of rivalry, finally became worthy of the 
Hellenic spirit and Hellenic culture. Originally they 
were accidental performances attached as an appendage 
to the religious rites that were panegyrically celebrated 
at the altars here. But in the height of the classic 
period, the contests had become more widely known 
and more nationally important than the cults which 
occasioned them. What more essentially contributed 
to the development and fame of such contests as these 
was the fact that the training of the body by means 
of gymnic exercises always continued to be an integral 
part of Hellenic education. A healthy and well-de- 
veloped body was the natural desire of every Greek. 
But the body which the Greeks developed was the 
ensouled body, the incarnate spirit, rather than the 
mere muscles and sinews and limbs. The teachers 
who instructed the young men in the art of perfecting 



THE GAMES AT OLYMPIA 225 

their corporeal structure also taught them simul- 
taneously the laws of good deportment, both of body 
and of soul, respect for parental and civic authority, 
patriotic love of country and willing readiness to de- 
fend it, emulous esteem for the chivalrous deeds of 
their mythic ancestors, and reverence for their homes 
and hearth-gods, and native religion. In a word many 
of those best virtues which today are taught by taking 
the "humanities" as a starting-point and occasion were 
then taught well and nobly by taking the gymnic train- 
ing of the body as the basic lesson. 

The Olympic contests took place every four years. 
They were events too official and grand for more fre- 
quent occurrence. On the approach of the season for 
the commencement of the contests, olive-crowned 
heralds were sent forth to all Hellenic lands to pro- 
claim the holy truce. All wars and hostile strife were 
suspended. From every noted city of Hellendom the 
noble devotees traveled across mountain and sea to 
the Olympic shrines. Men who a month previously 
had been antagonists in opposite hostile armies here 
contended against each other in even manlier valor, 
or sat side by side as they watched and cheered each 
his favorite champion or landsman. None save free- 
born Greeks of pure descent might witness these 
sacred trials of manliness or take a part therein. This 
was one of the greatest triumphs of phyletic pride. An 
ancient king of Makedon had to show that the myths 
traced his origin to a pure Hellenic root before he was 
allowed the freedom of Olympia. When the Greeks 
ceased to be free and independent, then their con- 
querors the Romans took part here. Appearances were 



226 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

saved, however, by placing proper emphasis on the 
mythic traditions which taught that the inhabitants of 
Rome were the offspring of Greek colonizers. Such 
honorific myths were not unacceptable even to the 
Romans. The noblest Latin felt his glory increased 
by permitted participation in these gymnic rites. Nero 
the royal maniac, on his mad tour through Greece, en- 
rolled himself as contestant in the Olympic games. He 
personally attempted to drive in the hippodrome his 
gilded chariot, harnessed to ten young horses. He 
tumbled out; but after a second attempt and second 
fall, he was carried victoriously off the field, and 
received the prize. Despite the folly of this exceptional 
man and the criminality of those who awarded him 
four crowns of victory at the Olympic contests, the 
games continued to be both respected and prized by 
all who under the broad title of "Roman" might 
participate. Finally Olympia became free to every 
"Roman," that is, to every Hellenized and free-born 
citizen whom the Latin imperial government acknowl- 
edged. Thus the last man whose name graces the 
long list of Olympic victories, the list which is authen- 
tic back to Jj6 years before Christ, was a native of 
Armenia. His unhellenic name was Varaztad. A 
Roman was this Varaztad, like all other men who had 
accepted the civilization of Athens and the empire of 
the Caesars. 

But the wideness of the empire and its troubles were 
not favorable to such panegyrics as those of Olympia. 
Besides, the new and holier religion, which had begun 
gloriously to triumph, was not in full sympathy with 
Olympiac rites, for they were connected with heathen 



THE GAMES AT OLYMPIA 227 

traditions. In the time of Hadrian the games were 
still in good repute. But after him the prestige of the 
fete began to diminish. The celebrations still attracted 
multitudes ; but they came rather through curiosity and 
the desire of making a pleasant excursion. Their piety 
was gone. They no longer understood the gymnic 
art as a part of humanistic education. In fact educa- 
tion itself was falling into neglect. Such as were 
Christians had chosen a higher cult than the Olympian. 
Such as still were pagan were irreverent and dis- 
respectful. The past no longer charmed them. They 
had become "practical." The contests were held for 
the last time in the year 393. In the following year 
Theodosios the emperor abolished them by a royal 
decree. And in the year 426, Theodosios the Second 
issued an edict against all the temples and shrines of 
the old gods. The sacred Grove of Olympia with its 
temples was afterward burned by fire. Then a small 
community of Christians settled among the ruins, and 
erected a beautiful church whose foundations still can 
be seen. These in turn gave way to a tribe of shep- 
herds who built their cabins on the top of their prede- 
cessors' ruins. Then some tribes from the far north, 
from the steppes of Russia, wandered into this holy 
precinct and built their huts in the Altis. The jargon 
of Slavonian herdsmen was heard at the foot of 
Kronos hill. But they also disappeared. Long after 
them, the Frankish knights, the chivalrous conquerors 
of the Morea, became acquainted with this beautiful 
spot and placed a castle here. They, too, disappeared. 
Then all grew still. The place was deserted, and the 



228 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

Kladaos began to entomb the glorious ruins in beds of 
sand. 

The various contests were not all instituted at once, 
naturally. According to common repute, the most 
ancient prize had been given as a reward for running. 
Finally, contests were sufficiently numerous to cover 
a period of five days, including the preparatory and 
closing exercises. They took place in early autumn, 
or toward the end of summer. The rites and sports 
were such as men only were expected to enjoy. This 
opinion was made a law of strict enjoinment. No 
married woman was allowed within the sacred region 
during the time appointed for the games. It is not 
certain to us that this prohibition extended to un- 
married girls. But the number of maidens that would 
have taken advantage of such liberty, if conceded to 
them, must have been comparatively small. Those 
from Elis and other near towns might possibly have 
gone there occasionally with their fathers or brothers. 
On the statutes was a decree enjoining that if a woman 
were ever found present at the games she should be 
hurled to death from the top of the neighboring Ty- 
pseon Mount. The priestess of Demeter, however, 
might always assist. She was the only exception. 
Only once was this ordinance against women violated. 
For the sake of her son who had no other reliable 
friend to direct him, Kallipateira disguised herself as 
a man and entered the holy precincts. But when her 
son gloriously won, she showed her exultation in such 
a profuse way as to reveal her motherly pride and her 
womanliness. In her case, however, the stern law 
was not enforced, for the judges recalled the fact that 



THE GAMES AT OLYMPIA 229 

her father, the famous Diagoras, had formerly been 
several times crowned with the sacred wreaths, and 
that likewise her brothers, and now her son had won. 
She was not thrown from the Typaeon Mount. No 
other woman ever risked the danger. 

Each day the contests were preceded by religious 
processions and sacrifices to the gods. On the first day 
Zevs was propitiated by a mighty hecatomb of bulls. 
Other sacrifices likewise pompous were performed at 
the altars of the other gods. Then the judges and 
trainers and contestants all went to an altar which 
stood within the senate-house, and there each one 
uttered the oath prescribed. The contestants stated 
in oath that they had conscientiously prepared them- 
selves for their respective trials of skill by a scientific 
training of ten months ; that they were not under any 
thraldom but were free Greeks; and that they were 
not deprived in any way of their political rights. They 
also promised to contend justly and according to the 
regulations of the contests. 

The second, third, and fourth days were occupied 
with the various contests. Of the different successive 
feats of skill and manliness, the series that constituted 
the "pentathlon" was the most highly esteemed, because 
the feats of the pentathlon were a series of exercises 
that were thought to require the activity of the entire 
body harmoniously and evenly and employ all the 
limbs. The five constituent exercises of the pentath- 
lon were a run, a leap, a javelin-throw, a disk-throw, 
and a bout at wrestling. The contest least admired 
was that of boxing. Witty and sarcastic are the 
numerous epigrams in verse that have been preserved 



230 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

describing the mutilated faces and unrecognizable 
features of the victorious pugilists, some of whom 
were so badly different from their former appearance 
as to frighten their own dogs when they returned 
home. But the pugilists were plucky, however ; and it 
is related of Evrydamas that when his antagonist 
struck him in the mouth and broke off his teeth he 
purposely swallowed them so that his antagonist might 
not see his discomfiture and thereby gain greater con- 
fidence. 

The most stupendous spectacle was that of the 
chariot-races. These took place on the fourth day. 
The prize for the race went not to the charioteer but to 
the owner of the outfit. Even women were allowed 
to send chariots and contend by proxy. Agesilaos, 
the king of Sparta, in order to prove that no virtue of 
a manly kind was required for the acquisition of this 
crown, persuaded his sister Kyniska to send a chariot 
and steeds to Olympia. She did so, and won. Each 
chariot was drawn by four horses. Quite a number 
of chariots might contend at once. Sophokles de- 
scribes such a race at Delphi, wherein ten chariots dash 
over the sands of the hippodrome at once. Pindar in 
one of his grand odes mentions forty-one chariots as 
participating, but of course not all at once. Accidents 
were naturally numerous, and not all who fell were so 
fortunate as Nero. 

On the last day of this quinquidial festival, the 
crowns were awarded, sacrifices of thanksgiving were 
offered to Zevs and the other gods, the various official 
embassies from the different Greek cities organized 
pompous processions in honor of their prize-crowned 



THE GAMES AT OLYMPIA 231 

townsmen, banquets were given to the victors, and 
songs were sung in their praise. The crowns were 
made of boughs all from a special holy tree which 
grew within the precinct of the Altis, near the great 
fane of Zevs. The tree was a wild olive, which, 
according to the legend, was brought to Olympia by 
Herakles from the distant land of the Hyperboreans. 
The branches were cut from the tree by a boy both 
of whose parents should be living, using a golden 
knife. Each victor heard his name sung out by the 
herald, who added the name of the victor's father and 
his natal town. He walked up to the table of gold and 
ivory where the crowns were resting, and the oldest of 
the judges placed the olive wreath on the victor's head. 
After the sacrifices of thanksgiving, after the feasts 
and songs and carousals were ended, then the victors 
went home escorted by their proud townsmen. The 
greatest poets composed their best cantatas in their 
honor. Pindar's unequaled odes are nearly all 
written to exalt the praises of victorious contestants 
at the various great games. Simonides and Evripides 
used their best skill for the same purpose. The return- 
ing victors often re-entered their native town drawn 
in a chariot by four white steeds, and not through one 
of the gates of the walled city, but through a breach 
intentionally made, to teach the belief that a city need 
have no strong walls when it has Olympian victors 
among the citizens that are ever ready to defend it. 
The victors might, if they desired, erect a commemora- 
tive statue in Olympia. Their crowns they dedicated to 
the deities of their native town. When Exaenetos 
came back to Akragas after his victory at Olympia in 



232 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the year 412, his fellow-citizens escorted him into the 
city in a chariot with three hundred spans of white 
steeds. But the hero most highly honored in antiquity 
was Diagoras, who had won victories at the four 
great shrines, at Delphi and Korinth and Nemea, as 
well as here. Pindar's ode in honor of Diagoras was 
copied in letters of gold and dedicated in a temple of 
Athena in the native town of Diagoras, in Lindos of 
Rhodos. According to the notion of every Greek, the 
fanatical Lakonian spoke the truth when on seeing 
Diagoras borne triumphantly on the shoulders of his 
two sons at Olympia, who also were crowned victors, 
uttered an exclamation which conveyed the meaning 
that Diagoras could not receive honors any higher than 
these, save that of becoming a god. 



THE PILEAKS' ISLAND 

Kerkyra is the great entrance gate to Greece and 
the near East. A never-ceasing stream of tourists 
and other travelers passes by Kerkyra year after year 
from all parts of Europe on their way to the many 
places of historic interest on the shores of the eastern 
Mediterranean. 

Kerkyra is not simply the first stopping-place for 
voyagers to the Levant ; its attractions are among those 
that may possibly have strongest claim on the pleasure 
seeker, or the historian, or the antiquarian, and may 
entice him into prolonging his stay on the island. 

Of the English tourists who visit Kerkyra for a 
brief stay, a good proportion consists of men who 
come down and make their headquarters here in order 
to hunt wild game in the Albanian and Akrokeravnian 
mountains, which lie just opposite along the coast of 
Epeiros, and form the eastern horizon to the bay of 
Kerkyra. 

This Kerkyra is an island lying in the Ionian Sea, a 
few miles west of Albania, and ten hours by steamship 
east of Brindisi. It is the northernmost of all the 
Ionian group. Like its Ionian sisters, it first became 
familiarly known to northern readers through the war- 
news in the time of Napoleon. Up to 1797 Kerkyra 
constituted a most valuable portion of the possessions 
of the great republic of Venice. But in that year it 
was captured by the French, shortly after the young 
Napoleon had forever abolished the aristocratic gov- 

233 



234 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

ernment of the doges. From 1807 to 18 14 it consti- 
tuted a portion of the empire created by Napoleon. 
Kerkyra may always be mentioned with honor in 
connection with the stirring events that group them- 
selves around the career of this conqueror. For of 
all the heroic and unusual acts of war which glorified 
that first empire, the grimly unyielding bravery of the 
imperial garrison of Kerkyra is one of the most 
admirable. In the wars between the French and the 
other powers, this garrison held out for six entire 
years, against an English blockade. General Donze- 
let, who commanded here, and who for these six years 
had been cut off from all communication with the 
mother country, agreed to abandon the defense only 
after he had learned from the blockaders that his 
emperor for whom he was fighting had been deposed 
by the treaty of Paris, and that Kerkyra had by that 
same treaty become an English possession. The 
English, who sometimes know how to appreciate a 
hero, sent Donzelot with honors back to France. 

The island is long and narrow. From its northern- 
most point to its southernmost, the distance is about 
35 English miles. Its population is about eighty 
thousand. It is dotted with small white towns, inter- 
esting and pretty, as they stand out on the hill-slopes 
and mountain sides, among the vineyards and olive 
groves. The chief city and capital, which bears the 
same name as the island, is situated on the eastern 
shore, on the bay and narrows that separate the island 
from Albania. 

In appearance this town is not unlike other towns 
of the Ionian group. Its general aspect is Italian. 



THE PH^AKS' ISLAND 235 

This is not strange; the Venetians held it for four 
hundred years. Were it not for the eternal unchange- 
ableness of the oriental peoples, they would long ago 
have become out and out Venetians. East of the 
town, a narrow tongue of high rock juts out one hun- 
dred yards into the sea. This rock has for centuries 
been the site of the chief defenses of the town. It 
still bears its Venetian name of Fortezza Vecchia, 
but now serves only as a military storehouse and 
military school. 

From the top of this old fortress-covered rock, the 
view is grand. With the telescope of the watchman, 
who willingly offers it in order to receive a few soldi 
in return, one can trace the line of snow-capped Al- 
banian mountains indefinitely far. Hagioi Saranta or 
the town of the "Forty Saints," which the Greek 
fleet shot into during the war of 1897, can be seen, and 
the dismantled houses easily distinguished. Beneath 
one's feet lies the entire city of Kerkyra, with its high 
Venetian edifices, showing off their white walls and 
green window shutters. The Venetians fearlessly 
built their houses three and four, and even five stories 
high in Kerkyra, because fortunately the island lies 
just north of the usual earthquake region. Not only 
do the Venetian houses, some of which still retain 
the romantic jalousie windows, recall the rule and in- 
fluence of the proud old government of the doges, but 
everywhere, on the ramparts of the fortifications, over 
various gates and doors, and in many other public 
places, may still be seen sculptured in stone the lion 
of St. Mark, holding with his forepaws the gospel of 
the patron apostle of Venice. This ensign of the 



236 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

queen of the Adriatic may be seen wherever she set her 
authority. But many of these lions were mutilated, 
if not entirely chiseled away, by the French repub- 
licans, who in 1797 took possession of Kerkyra. Since 
these lions were the symbols of an aristocratic, if not 
also tyrannic power, the victorious Frenchmen, who in 
the public square of the city had planted the tree of 
liberty, could not indifferently behold the mediaeval 
lions frowning and grinning at them from the ancient 
bastions. 

The Fortezza Vecchia is separated from the town 
proper by a large open square, not smaller, and for 
the Kerkyrseans not less important, than the champ-de- 
Mars of Paris. Along the west side of this esplanade 
stand the high Venetian houses of the city, and on 
the eastern side is a water-filled moat which is crossed 
by an arched bridge, that connects the esplanade and 
the fortress. At the north extremity of this esplanade 
is a huge building erected by the English as a dwelling 
for the Lord High Commissioner, who, during the 
English protectorate over the islands, from 181 5 to 
1864, represented England here. It was also the 
place of meeting for the Ionian senate, which then 
legislated for the Ionian states, of which Kerkyra was 
the capital. The palace is now merely an array of 
deserted halls. It is a cold and unsympathetic, heart- 
less structure, built of gray stone brought here from 
the island of Malta. Perhaps few strangers ever 
visit it, except the archaeologists who go there to see 
an ancient marble lioness, perhaps as old as those that 
guard the entrance to the fortress of Homeric Mykenae, 
and as curious. 



THE PtLEAKS' ISLAND 237 

This lioness was found in 1843, in one of the 
suburbs south of the town, in a place which must have 
been a cemetery more than 3,000 years ago. Near to 
where the lioness was found, there is still to be seen 
one of the ancient tombs of this ancient burial-place. 
It is a round, solid mass of masonry, about ten feet in 
diameter, and about six feet high, built of stones care- 
fully hewn and neatly fitted together. Round the 
upper edge of the circular outside wall is engraved 
the inscription in old Doric dialect, written more than 
five hundred years before the birth of Christ, and 
stating that the tomb was erected in memory of a 
certain Menekrates, who had been drowned in the sea. 
He lived in Kerkyra as consul to that city from the 
commonwealth of Eantheia in Greece. And the monu- 
ment was erected to him by his brother. 

By the treaty of Paris in 1814, Kerkyra, with the 
other Ionian Islands, was declared to be free, but 
under the protection of England. As a matter of 
fact, she became an English possession out and out. 
Such did the Ionian Islands remain until 1864, when 
in a moment of unavoidable generosity, created in part 
by Gladstone, England freely yielded to the desire of 
the inhabitants, and presented Kerkyra with all the 
other Ionian Islands to the kingdom of Greece. But 
while England held Kerkyra, she took excellent care 
of it, proving herself here as elsewhere to be a proud 
and relentless mistress indeed, but nevertheless suffi- 
ciently just, as matters go. She interested herself in 
the generalization of education — chiefly in that of 
elementary instruction, without, however, neglecting 
the importance of providing for higher training. She 



238 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

it was who founded the academy, usually known as the 
"University of Kerkyra." This university, the first 
modern institution of higher learning destined for 
students of the Greek race, and the forerunner of the 
present National Hellenic University of Athens, was 
quite complete, and in it were educated many men who 
afterward proved useful for the new State of Greece. 
Higher education at their own door, such as the 
English furnished, was a marvelous novelty to the in- 
habitants of Kerkyra. During the four hundred years 
of vassalage to Venice, such luxury was not to be 
thought of. Venice took good care that her leading 
citizens and subjects be educated, if at all, either in the 
schools of Venice itself, or in the University of Padua, 
in order that no spirit of separation might be bred 
into them. The regulations of Venice forbidding 
citizens from sending their children to schools not 
recognized by the government of the doge, especially 
to Jesuit schools, applied also to the inhabitants of 
Kerkyra, whether Catholic or Greek. 

After Kerkyra became a portion of the Greek king- 
dom, the Ionian university was closed, in conformity 
with the destructive tendency of the Greek govern- 
ment to concentrate all power and influence at Athens. 
And now the only successor in Kerkyra to the old 
university is the public gymnasium or national college. 
It still contains the excellent library of forty thousand 
volumes which the English gathered for the university, 
and which is now one of the most important collections 
of books in all of Greece. 

Up to the coming of the French in 1797, the Kerky- 
raeans like their masters, the Venetians, were divided 



THE PH^AKS' ISLAND 239 

into three classes; the nobles, the citizens, and the 
populace. The nobles were of a mixed breed, being, 
however, chiefly Venetians and Greeks. The citizens 
were likewise a mixture of both these elements, with 
a preponderance of the Greek; while the "popolani" 
were quite pure Greek, with but a slight admixture of 
Italian, and perhaps, Albanian blood. 

Of these three classes each wore a special style of 
dress, distinguishing the social condition of the wearer. 
The French republicans, notwithstanding all the abuses 
and excesses they occasioned, conferred the lasting 
benefit of contributing to the perpetual abolition of 
the dress-distinction between the social castes here. 
Since that time, the two upper classes, no longer 
having a recognized separate existence, abandoned 
their distinguishing habiliments and took to wearing 
the ordinary costumes of the rest of the world. The 
"people," however, who change less readily, have not 
yet entirely given up their mediaeval styles, and es- 
pecially the women in the more distant villages can 
yet be seen wearing them. This dress is noticeable, 
like ancient styles in many other places, from the fact 
that much use is made of color and demonstrative 
decoration, and embroidery. The material is heavy 
and costly. A woman's outfit once made used to be 
worn by her on all important occasions from the day 
of her marriage to her old age, and was then be- 
queathed to her daughter to wear likewise for her life- 
time. 

These ancient highly decorated dresses of the 
women of Kerkyra can be seen chiefly on popular 
feast days, when the peasants gather round some 



240 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

church, whose saint's birth or death is being com- 
memorated. There they perform their ancient dances, 
sing their ancient songs, and show off their rich 
dresses, to attract some suitor from their townsmen. 
It is an attractive dress when worn by an attractive 
Korphiotissa. But, unfortunately, the unfavorable 
circumstances in which most of the women of this class 
have to live, in toil and privation, does not allow the 
development and charm of womanliness that one 
would like to see. Nevertheless, there are wonderful 
exceptions. At times one sees forms that can be 
matched only in the statues of classic antiquity. Es- 
pecially are such to be seen occasionally in the two 
towns of Gastouri and Benizze. Gastouri is merely a 
collection of peasants' hovels in a lovely region near 
which the empress Elizabeth built her country palace. 
Benizze is a fishers' village on the bay, near which 
fresh springs tumble their waters into the sea, and 
round which the best oranges of Kerkyra grow. 
Benizze is a perfect picture of southern country 
luxuriousness. 

Benizze is a favorite place of resort for the stray 
tourist. But it is not the only compensating excur- 
sion beyond the suburbs of the capital. Of these 
excursions I mention only the longest one, that to 
Monte San Salvatore. San Salvatore, or as it is 
now better known by its Greek name, Mount Pan- 
tokrator, is a fine lookout three thousand feet above 
the level of the sea in the northern part of the 
island. A mountain which lifts itself no higher than 
three thousand feet is usually not a very wonderful 
object. But the Pantokrator rises on three sides right 



THE PH^AKS' ISLAND 241 

out of the sea. No gently ascending slopes for miles 
and miles insensibly absorb a portion of this height. 
While an inland mountain of this height might not be 
really many hundred feet taller than the surrounding 
hills and vales, this sea-shore giant shows every 
foot of his stature from his base at the water's edge 
to his rock-crowned head. 

To make the ascent of the Pantokrator is not so 
toilsome an undertaking despite the mountain's height. 
On August 6 of every year, when the small monastery 
which nestles on the summit celebrates its feast-day, 
the paths and top of the mountain are covered with 
pilgrims. Whoever makes the ascent at any other 
time must have a good guide. The entire island of 
Kerkyra is only a portion of the panorama that lies 
round the feet of the beholder. In favorable weather, 
afar off to the northwest, the dim coast of Italy, more 
than one hundred miles distant, can be descried here 
and there from Otranto to Monte Gargano. To the 
east, measureless tracts of mountain and valley in 
Albania and Epeiros lie spread out in wild grandeur 
as far as the eye can reach. 

No one who visits this island can separate in his 
imagination this Kerkyra of today from the mytho- 
logic Kerkyra of the past. Kerkyra recalls to us 
Homer and his immortal poems. Tradition, which 
loves to localize favorite stories, asserts that this 
island was the home of the Phaeaks, and therefore the 
scene of much that is beautiful in the Odyssey of 
Homer. Homer relates that when Odyssevs started 
back to his home in Ithaka, after his associates and 
he had by a ten years' siege destroyed the mighty city 



242 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

of Troy in Asia Minor, he was driven hither and 
thither in the sea, and, after all of his companions 
had perished, was thrown shipwrecked on an island 
belonging to the nymph Kalypso, who long kept him 
a captive, so that only after twenty years of absence 
from his family, did he finally reach his Ithaka. 
Among the other places which he came to during his 
wanderings homeward, was this country of the 
Phseaks, where he met with unwonted hospitality. He 
was washed ashore by the waves after the raft which 
bore him hither from Kalypso's isle had been wrecked 
by the storm-god Poseidon. The Phseaks clothed and 
feasted him and loaded him with princely gifts, and 
provided a crew and ship to convey him on to Ithaka. 
The Phseak seamen swiftly bore Odyssevs over the 
waves to his home, but after leaving him on his native 
soil, they, in returning to their own island, were 
destroyed by the grudge ful Poseidon, who did not 
wish Odyssevs to have obtained their hospitality and 
assistance on the sea. Their ship he turned into a 
rock as it was about to re-enter their harbor after 
its voyage with Odyssevs to Ithaka. 

Tradition has not forgotten these myths nor has 
it forgotten to find a localization for each and every 
one of them. The island where the goddess Kalypso 
kept Odyssevs a prisoner for so many years, is pointed 
out from the top of the Pantokrator, and may be seen 
lying innocently in the blue water northwest of Ker- 
kyra, being one of the group of the so-called 
Othonian Islets. 

The prettiest place associated with the mythological 
topography is the petrified ship. The harbor of the 



THE PHiEAKS' ISLAND 243 

ancient city of Kerkyra was not identical with the 
modern one, but lay about half an hour's walk to the 
south from the modern city, and is now called the 
"Lake of Kalichiopoulo." With time it has become 
filled with silt, and now cannot be entered except by 
flat canoes. In the deeper water at its mouth is a 
small island not more than one hundred feet in diam- 
eter, a soil-covered rock about fifty feet high, with 
a little Byzantine church on the top, and planted thick 
with ten or twelve high cypress trees. The peasants 
call it Pontiko Nesi or "Mouse Island," possibly on 
account of its diminutiveness. But every Kerkyrsean 
who has heard of Odyssevs will gravely bring you to 
a promontory called "the One-Gun-Battery," overlook- 
ing the ancient harbor and island, and show you 
Pontico Nesi as the petrified ship of Odyssevs. It is 
also called "Monk-Island," from the fact that one or 
two caloyers live in a hut by the little church, of which 
they have the care. On the walls of this chapel are 
two bilingual inscriptions, in Greek and Italian, com- 
memorative of visits to the island by the empress 
Elizabeth of Austria and her son, the Archduke 
Rudolf. 

The One-Gun-Battery lies on the north side of the 
mouth of the ancient harbor. And just opposite it, 
on the south side of this entrance, is a spring of beauti- 
ful water, which runs down in a small stream to the 
bay. This spring, mythic tradition has also identified, 
calling it the fountain of Kressida, where Odyssevs 
was cast ashore, and where he met Navsikaa the king's 
daughter, who had gone thither with her attendants 



244 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

to wash the royal linen., and who directed Odyssevs 
thence to the palace of her father. 

To show how steadfast a matter tradition is. and at 
the same time to show that tradition may shift its 
localizations. I mention the fact that this tradition 
about the petrified ship existed thirteen hundred years 
ago. as firmly as it does today. For in the armies of 
the Byzantine emperor Justinian was the historian 
Prokopios, who came to Kerkyra and there was shown 
the petrified ship. But it was then localized not where 
now. but farther north, at a point where once stood a 
shrine of Zevs Kassios. and which now is sacred to the 
Panaghia Kassiope. Prokopios examined the so-called 
petrified ship, and found that it was not genuine. But 
he thought it worth while to record the fact in his 
books on the Gothic war. 

Speaking of the traditions of the island, it is worth 
while to mention another one. of a different nature. 
One might think that the above-mentioned traditions 
are kept alive chiefly because they add a kind of 
prestige to the country, and are a matter of local pride. 
But what can be said about the following? An old 
English chronicle-writer. John Brompton, relating 
facts concerning Kerkyra and appertaining to the 
twelfth century states that on the coast of Epeiros 
just across from Kerkyra there was a deserted town 
which was known to be the native village of Judas 
Iskariot, the betrayer of Christ. Brompton, although 
he connected the myth with the stories about Kerkyra, 
located the ill-reputed town on the opposite side of the 
bay. But the later Greeks, if not those contemporary 
with Brompton. located it within the island of Ker- 



THE PH^AKS' ISLAND 245 

kyra. In the year 1614, the celebrated humanist Pietro 
della Valle visited Kerkyra, and among his notes 
which he published, he wrote: 

Here lives a man reputed to be of the race of Judas. The 
man himself denies the relationship, and I do not know whether 
it be a fact or not. But I do remember a servant of ours who 
formerly had resided in Kerkyra affirming that one of the 
apostate's descendants still existed there, and that a house was 
pointed out as the one in which he lived. 

This myth mentioned by Brompton and della Valle 
still exists. There is in the island a small village 
called Skaria, of which the inhabitants are called 
Skariots. And every peasant today believes that these 
Skariots are the offspring of the Skariot or Iskariot 
Judas. Often, when a Kerkyraean wishes to cast a 
slur on his countrymen, and to indicate their faithless- 
ness, he says: "Wasn't even Judas one of us? ,! The 
tradition is certainly a peculiar one. It has not passed 
unused. For the German novelist Zschokke has woven 
it into his story, Die Creole. 

Reliable and proven history for Kerkyra begins in 
the eighth century before Christ. At that time there 
came to Kerkyra a colony of Korinthians who estab- 
lished themselves in the island. The colony rapidly 
grew, and soon became a fair rival of the parent 
country. At last this rivalry developed into open war, 
a fact important in history because it occasioned the 
first datable naval battle of which we have any record 
in the history of European civilization. The battle 
was fought in the waters of Kerkyra, 665 years before 
Christ, and the colonists won. 

From that time Kerkyra continuously flourished. 



246 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

But when antagonism grew up between the East and 
the West. Kerkyra. being in the middle, had to suffer. 
In the fourth century before Christ, it was captured 
by Agathokles. who came eastward from Sicily, and 
fort}- years later it was captured by Pyrrhos on his 
way west from Epeiros against Rome. 

When Rome began to take interest in the affairs 
of the Greek nations Kerkyra became an ally of the 
Latins, and at first gained thereby. But when, begin- 
ning with Caesar, that long series of civil wars broke 
out in the Roman empire. Kerkyra usually was an 
active participant, and always was with the side 
destined to lose. In the war between Caesar and 
Pompey. the men of Kerkyra embraced the cause of 
the latter. After Pompey" s forces had been utterly 
routed on the battle-field of Pharsalia. Kerkyra be- 
came the rendezvous of his scattered followers. The 
last surviving leaders of the defenders of republican 
Rome met here to decide on future plans. In the 
party were Cicero and Cato. Cicero returned to Rome 
to crave mercy from the leader of the imperialists, but 
Cato followed his defeated chief to Egypt. "Yictrix 
causa diis placuit. sed victa Catoni." 

Again civil war broke out in the empire, with 
Antony and Octavius against Brutus and Cassius. 
The republican-spirited Kerkyrseans took part with 
Brutus and Cassius. and again were doomed to learn 
that their favorites had been defeated, at Philippi. 

A third time civil war raged, when Antony with his 
ally Kleopatra pitted himself against his former 
friend and companion. Octavius. The Kerkyraeans 
took sides with Antony. This time they did not escape 



THE PH^AKS' ISLAND 247 

without serious consequences. After the battle of 
Aktion, from which the ships of Kleopatra took first 
refuge in Kerkyra, Octavius, who thus became grand 
commander or emperor of the Roman army, punished 
them severely and cruelly. 

After the division of the Roman world into two 
portions under Constantine the Great, Kerkyra became 
part of the eastern empire. 

When the crusades began, Kerkyra was again 
destined to be a position of importance. It came into 
more especial notice at the time of the Fourth Crusade, 
when the barons who had gathered at Venice for a 
united expedition against the Moslem infidel, finding 
themselves without means to continue their holy enter- 
prise, sold their services to Venice in order to raise 
funds for the transporting of their troops and the 
continuance of the crusade. Venice set them against 
the town of Zara in Dalmatia, which belonged not to 
the Moslem, but to other Christians. While encamped 
at Zara, there came to them Alexios, son of the de- 
posed Greek emperor of Constantinople. The barons, 
under Venetian pressure, patronized his cause and 
resolved to place him on the throne of Constantine. 
Kerkyra was appointed to be the rendezvous. The 
Crusaders came tx> Kerkyra and remained three weeks 
in this rich and bountiful island. From here, on a 
bright and cheerful day, and with winds that were soft 
and favorable, they spread their sails and turned their 
prows toward Constantinople. Their stay in Kerkyra 
and their departure thence is poetically described in the 
Chronicle of Villeharduin. 

Having arrived at Constantinople these Crusaders 



248 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

took possession of the city first for Alexios and then 
for themselves and divided the city and its domains. 
Kerkyra constituted part of the allotment given to 
Venice. But Venice did not finally come into complete 
possession of Kerkyra until the year 1386. In the 
meantime it was chiefly under the kings of Naples and 
the adventurers that represented these kings in the 
East. 

During the Venetian control, Kerkyra flourished 
comparatively. It withstood two famous sieges by the 
Turks. The first of these took place in the year 1537. 
It was conducted by the world-famed janizzar Khair 
Eddin Barbarossa, The story tells how the siege was 
long and terrible, but that finally the Turks withdrew. 
They did not go empty-handed, however. They led 
off as slaves thousands of the inhabitants, men, women, 
and children. These Kerkyrseans were brought to 
the market of Constantinople, where they were publicly 
sold at auction, after a proclamation was heralded that 
whosoever desired to buy at a low price good Christian 
slaves could be suited in the Kerkyrsean captives. 
Moustoxydes, a Kerkyraean who in the last century 
was noted as a historical investigator, narrates the 
following characteristic though unproven and some- 
what inconsistent story. He says that among these 
ill-starred slaves was one who afterward became 
famous. Kale Kartanou was her name. She and her 
mother and brother were carried off. In captivity they 
were separated, and no one knew the fate of the others. 
Years afterward the mother was redeemed by some 
Christian, and wandered back to her native Kerkyra. 
The brother of Kale also succeeded in gaining his 



THE PfLEAKS' ISLAND 249 

liberty, and returned. But Kale when carried off was 
a mere child seven years old. She was brought to the 
palace and kept there, and became the property of 
Sultan Selim, and the mother of his successor on the 
throne of Constantinople. In the Ambrosian library of 
Milan there is still preserved an official copy of a letter 
which was forwarded through Venetian diplomats to 
Kale Kartanou, after she had become sultana, a letter 
from her mother asking that the sultana take her to 
Constantinople. Together with this letter is preserved 
a note from the sultana, ordering certain officials to aid 
her mother in reaching Constantinople. We have no in- 
formation as to whether the mother actually succeeded 
in again seeing her daughter or not. The wisdom of 
Kale was regarded as wonderful, and became prover- 
bial in Constantinople. Being carried off so young, she 
did not keep her Christian faith, at least openly. But a 
tradition states that she baptized her son, through a 
dim remembrance that it was proper to do so. She 
was buried near the great mosque of St. Sophia, at the 
command of Sultan Murat, by the side of his father 
Selim. 

The other great siege was that sustained in 1716. 
Kerkyra was defended by a garrison under the com- 
mand of a German officer in Venetian service, Count 
von Schulemburg, brother of the woman whom 
George the First of England made duchess of Munster 
in Ireland and countess of Kendall in England. Von 
Schulemburg armed and organized all the men of the 
city, even the Jews. The Turks remained for seven 
weeks. Then, seeing that their efforts were futile, 
they sailed away. Venice was grateful to the brave 



250 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

and successful German, and erected a statue to him at 
the entrance to the fortress. The statue is still in 
position. But to appreciate the value of this mark of 
honor to Schulemburg, one must know that the Vene- 
tian government had but shortly before ordered that 
several other honorary statues, erected by the obsequi- 
ous nobility of Kerkyra to representatives of the 
Venetian government in the island, be thrown down. 

The long rule of the Venetians left deep and char- 
acteristic impressions on the men and women of the 
upper classes. In language most of all can the casual 
observer remark this influence. The two upper classes 
had almost forgotten the Greek language. They al- 
ways conversed in Italian, and as many of them as 
could read and write wrote in Italian and read Italian. 
But the language of the people remained Greek — I 
mean the language of the lowest class, the "popolani." 
But these popolani were mere serfs, and had no hopes 
of ever rising to a more comfortable level. Italian 
is still spoken more frequently than Greek, and more 
correctly, among the older people of the better class. 
Their Italian is of the Venetian dialect. But it differs 
considerably from the language spoken as dialect in 
Venice today. For while the Venetians have greatly 
modified their language, their former subjects, the 
Kerkyrseans, have kept the older Venetian dialect in- 
tact. In Kerkyra one hears such language as might 
have been heard more than a hundred years ago in 
Venice, but is now heard there no more. 

Since the Greek dialect of Kerkyra was spoken 
only by the lower classes, and was not usually taught 
in the few schools that existed, it became quite a 



THE PH^EAKS' ISLAND 251 

patois. But it was regarded as sympathetic and ex- 
pressive, and especially suited for Hght songs and 
serenades. Goldoni in his comedy called The Family 
of the Antiquary, represents Count Anselmo as having 
bought a Greek manuscript, which he, not knowing 
Greek, but thinking to be an important work, shows 
to Pantalone. Pantalone, as the play goes, had lived 
in Kerkyra, and had learned the dialect of the street 
gamins there. He sees at a glance that the manu- 
script, which, according to the supposition of the self- 
styled antiquarian ought to treat of a historic affair 
between the Athenians and Spartans, is really only a 
leaf from a songbook of some Kerkyrsean serenader, 
and reads "Mattia mou mattachia mou, cali spera 
mattia mou," which he translates "vita mia, dolce 
vita mia; bona sera, vita mia." But the "antiquarian," 
who is determined to believe that it is a valuable 
manuscript of former ages, snatches it from its tra- 
ducer, asserting that it is written in good old Greek, 
but that Pantalone does not know how to read, and 
as a proof that it is good, he says that he paid ten 
zecchini for it, and that it is worth a hundred. 

The upper classes of the Kerkyraeans who showed 
such readiness to throw off their language and habits 
and other national characteristics in order to conform 
with their masters, the Venetians, and who united 
with the Venetians in oppressing their kinsmen, the 
serfs, or even outdid the Venetians in acts of oppres- 
sion, drew the line at religion, and kept their own 
rites, in common with the serfs. They remained true 
to the eastern church, and true to their ancient re- 
ligious practices. However, they had no special 



252 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

distaste against the religion of the Latins, and did not 
object to taking part in the Latin services. 

Of their churches the most noted one is that sacred 
to St. Spyridon. This bishop was one of the Fathers 
who took part in the Council of Niksea. Since he 
lived and died before the schism of the churches, he 
is recognized by the Latins as well as by the Greeks. 
And here in his cathedral the mixed ceremonies, in 
which the two antagonistic sister churches took official 
part, used to be very interesting. Now, however, 
since the Catholics have withdrawn, only Greek serv- 
ices take place. The Greeks have a story of how it 
thundered and lightened, and how a powder magazine 
was blown up when the Latins for the last time, more 
than a century ago, attempted to erect an altar in the 
cathedral. I am personally acquainted with one of 
the most authoritative of Greek historical researchers, 
who lives away from his native Kerkyra perforce, 
because he had the temerity to write a pamphlet 
attempting to explain the blowing up of the magazine 
by other causes than the saint's rage. 

The holy relics are kept in a magnificent silver 
casket. Ever since the year 1630, when, by the saint's 
intercession, a plague that was afflicting the city 
ceased, his remains are borne on his feast day in 
solemn procession through the principal streets and 
esplanade. 

The Kerkyraean, like his kinsmen, the Italians and 
the Hellenes, loves religion indeed, but chiefly loves 
the pompous part of it. In his mind religion has no 
more to do with morality than has fishing or singing. 



THE PHiEAKS' ISLAND 253 

After the churches, which are out of all propor- 
tion to the number of church-goers, come the 
monasteries. These monasteries were most useful in 
the past. Now they are practically nothing more than 
delightful and odd places of hospitality and curiosity 
to which one goes for an outing, or makes the 
terminus of a walk or drive. The most popular one 
in Kerkyra is situated near the west shore of the 
island, on a rock standing high out of the water, and 
surrounded by wild trees. But others more interest- 
ing to the scholar are closer to the town. In one of 
these, the monastery of Jason and Sosipatros, was 
interred the body of Katharine Palseolog, consort of 
the last despot of Sparta. In the monastery of St. 
Paul, the last of the long line of historians of the By- 
zantine empire, Georgios Phranzes, wrote the descrip- 
tion of the fall of Constantinople, as he had seen it 
with his own eyes. 

With regret we sail off through the purple Ionian 
Sea from this beautiful island. In places it is still 
as luxuriant in vegetation as were the gardens of 
Alkinoos, king of the Phseaks. Homer's rich descrip- 
tion is still true. Cactus swells up here in tropical 
luxuriance. Magnolias, poppies, papyrus plant, be- 
wildering varieties of deep-colored flowers, vines 
entangled into all kinds of queer shapes, fig-trees and 
orange-groves and lemon trees, somber cypresses, 
standing among the rich undergrowth like monu- 
ments of the older ages, high banana trees — all can 
be found here. Gigantic olive trees, sometimes alone, 
sometimes in bunches, sometimes in groves, are spread 
over the island. These fine trees, together with the 



254 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

stately cypresses, give a peculiar peaceful appearance to 
the island. The Kerkyrseans do not trim their trees. 
Accordingly these olive trees rise usually to a height 
of thirty or forty feet. Examples can be found even 
sixty feet high. They are truly noble. 

This richness of scenery is enhanced by the fact 
that nowhere is this beauty rendered prosaic by fences 
or other careful and orderly divisions. The entire 
island is one vast domain of beauty. But of all lovely 
spots the most lovely is the one chosen for a summer 
palace by the king of Greece, and called by the French 
name of "Mon Repos," as though the language of his 
adopted country had no word to better express the 
beauty of the place. Xo where better than in Kerkyra 
can we quote from the ''Bride of Abydos" the lines 
in which Byron sang of an eastern world: 

The land of the cedar and vine, 

Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; 

Where the light wings of Zephyr oppressed with perfume 

Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul in her bloom; 

Where the citron and orange are fairest of fruit, 

And the voice of the nightingale never is mute; 

Where the tints of the earth and the hues of the sky 

In colors though varied, in beauty may vie, 

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, 

And all save the spirit of man is divine. 



THE KINGDOM OF ODYSSEVS 

The name of Ithaka is one of the few names of 
places that have been known and revered throughout 
all ages of our civilization and in every part of the 
Hellenized world. Ithaka enjoys this broad reputa- 
tion because it happened to have constituted the cele- 
brated domains of the wily chieftain who was selected 
by the poet Homer to be the grand hero of one of the 
earliest pieces of romance ever composed in European 
literature. Ithaka has become known along with the 
Odyssey and its hero Odyssevs. To Homer is due 
all the fame of the island, for if his poems had never 
been written this island like so many other charming 
places would have remained in oblivion for all save 
its own inhabitants. Places, like men, may have in- 
trinsic excellence but may never become known if not 
for the master-songs of praise that make the one and 
the other attractive. Achilles without the Iliad would 
have gone down to Hades a brave but unknown 
captain, and our Ithaka without the Odyssey would 
have been merely a remote isle of beautiful scenery. 
Indeed the Odyssey is sufficient to secure the ever- 
lasting fame of its hero and his home. For although 
the Iliad and this Odyssey stand earliest and most 
antique in all European fictional literature neverthe- 
less they are regarded as also among the best of their 
kind and perhaps have remained unequaled. The ex- 
cellence of these poems secured for them in antiquity 
a pre-eminence which the succeeding ages have not 

255 



256 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

seriously disputed. They have become the most re- 
spected even if not the most popular poems of all our 
literature. And the name of Ithaka. through these 
poems, has become a name familiar to us from our 
very childhood. 

But though Ithaka has in this way acquired world- 
wide celebrity, it nevertheless is not really a well- 
known place, even in our times which have surpassed 
all preceding ages in critically conducted historical 
and antiquarian research. If we except the English 
and the German scholars, very few are the tourists 
that visit Ithaka. 

All of our interest is centered in Ithaka of the 
Homeric civilization. If the later fortunes of the 
island attract us. it is mostly because we desire to 
know the after-fate of the kingdom of Odyssevs. 
The manners and customs described by Homer may 
loosely be called prehistoric for they are a picture of 
affairs in the island centuries before '"'the father of 
history," Herodotos, first with something like scientific 
care recorded for posterity his quaint accounts of 
important events. 

Homer's descriptions are so peculiar, and the events 
he narrates are so charming, that the localization of 
them is an enticing task. To the phil-Homeric trav- 
eler every hill and valley, even* rock and tree, every 
fountain and well and grove seem alive with the 
whisperings of the songful past, and call back the itin- 
erant troubadour and his rhapsodies. 

Ithaka. if judged by its size, would be very un- 
important. Odyssevs. however, struggled against 
countless intercepting dangers and resisted most se- 



THE KINGDOM OF ODYSSEVS 257 

ductive impending temptations in order to return to 
it after an absence of twenty years. Indeed he had 
left Ithaka unwillingly, and only at the call of most 
impelling duty. The witch Kalypso, to whose word 
he had no reason for refusing implicit belief, offered 
to place him among the immortals if renouncing his 
determination of returning to Ithaka he would become 
her husband. But Odyssevs loved his native castle 
too well, that "nest among the cliffs," as Cicero calls 
the palace of this hero. He loved it "non quia larga, 
sed quia sua." Indeed the entire island is less than 
fifteen miles long and its greatest width is not more 
than four or five miles. In shape it resembles two 
mountains standing in the sea, united by a narrow 
isthmus less than half a mile wide. 

Its population, now as well as in the days of 
Odyssevs, is small for the size of the island. Accord- 
ing to the census of 1889, the inhabitants numbered 
8,821 souls. 

Of the two poems traditionally and conveniently 
attributed to Homer, the one which deals chiefly with 
Ithaka is the Odyssey. The Odyssey is a collection of 
ballad-like songs, patriotic and social, which may 
first have been composed in the Peloponnesos, or 
possibly by exiled Greeks who lived in Asia Minor or 
on the Ionic Islands near to the Asiatic coast. These 
songs, if they were of exiles, re-echoed the remem- 
brances of a former life in Greece, and of a united 
naval or military expedition which the Peloponnesians 
and their allies had once made against some mighty 
town, which age-dimmed tradition identified with 
Troy, a once powerful city whose site was near the 



258 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

new homes of such Achseans as had taken up their 
abode in Asia Minor. Living in exile many were the 
beautiful and plaintive as well as glorious songs which 
these Achaean refugees composed, like the children of 
Israel in their huts of slavery along the banks of the 
Euphrates. But most of these songs, not having been 
collected and remolded into better artistic shape and 
recorded in books, perished utterly. None have sur- 
vived except the Iliad which describes some of the 
events of the war, and the Odyssey which deals with 
the return of the heroes, especially of Odyssevs. From 
these ooems we get a picture of life, such as it then 
was. We have to hesitate before calling it ancient, 
after all; for in the great space of the ages, what 
happened in Ithaka only thirty centuries ago may be 
regarded really as events of a very near past. 

Ithaka is dear not only to brave and true men who 
seek and find in Odyssevs a model for some noble 
qualities, but dearer perhaps to woman as being the 
home of Penelope. Odyssevs though a hero worthy 
of imitation had his eminent imperfections. But Penel- 
ope with all her greatness of soul had no notable 
defects. The virtue which Homer most exalts in 
Penelope is her steadfastness in believing against 
probability and hoping against almost certain fate that 
her heroic husband would finally return. Though two 
decades of years had rolled away, Penelope up to the 
very day of the unannounced return of the disguised 
wanderer did not fail morning by morning to lament 
his absence, and to hope faithfully that perhaps he 
might return even before the nightfall of that very- 
day. And this unalterable love was so much the more 



THE KINGDOM OF ODYSSEVS 259 

remarkable because she, as an opulent queen and of 
surpassing beauty of body and soul, was for years 
importuned with offers of marriage by a crowd of 
suitors who, confident of the death of Odyssevs, sought 
each her hand and wealth. 

These primeval suitors have in their way become 
as famous as the steadfast queen whom they tormented. 
Every castle in Ithaka and the surrounding islands 
furnished its young adventurous hero who claimed 
attention from the object of his suit. Each suitor, 
on finding his advances politely refused, did not depart 
from the castle, but remained and combined with all 
the others to harass the queen into accepting some one 
of their number, secretly hoping to be the lucky selec- 
tion. They came and resided in the spacious palace 
of the absent king, and ate and drank and made merry 
at his expense. 

But their audaciousness did not remain unpunished. 
And they themselves had not lost all sense of the 
wrong they were enacting. Most appalling are those 
verses of the Odyssey which describe how the seer 
Theoklymenos, who had come to Ithaka from Pylos, 
foretold dimly to them the dishonorable punishment of 
death awaiting them, and near at hand. The suitors 
while gluttonously tearing from the bones and devour- 
ing the half -cooked meat of the sheep appropriated 
from the flocks of the king, grew excessively riotous 
and boisterous. But when the prophet stood up, all 
suddenly seemed to turn from boisterousness to lament- 
ing. Tears of laughter had filled their eyes. But 
immediately the feeling of joy fled from each man's 
heart, and while his visage retained the contorted out- 



260 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

lines of excessive mirthfulness, his open mouth became 
rigid with an indefinite dread of unknown but threat- 
ened danger, and the tears of laughter, as each one 
saw them glistening on the whitened faces of his 
companions, seemed tears of terror. No other passage 
in literature may, for its intended reader, portray a 
scene so dread-inspiring to the actors, except, perhaps, 
that in the Book of the Prophet Daniel where is 
described the handwriting on the wall foretelling the 
impending death of Belshazzar, king of the Chal- 
dseans. 

Not only did the suitors waste with impunity and 
destroy the property of the absent king, but they even 
decided to do away with his only son, Telemachos, 
who had grown up, and who, as they began to observe, 
was not pleased with their actions. When he made 
a voyage to distant Pylos and Sparta in hope of learn- 
ing tidings about his father, they lay in ambush to kill 
him on his return. But their plan failed, and with the 
assistance of Athena, his tutelary goddess, Telemachos 
eluded the assassins. 

The audaciousness of the suitors was naturally sus- 
tained, if not occasioned, by the consciousness of the 
strength which they possessed. They were the sons of 
the powerful men of the land. They were one hun- 
dred and eight in number. But, to make their crime 
the greater, it happened that nearly all had occasion 
to feel gratitude toward the family of the king. Penel- 
ope reminded Antinoos, the chief leader of the suitors, 
that his father had come to Ithaka a refugee from 
death at the hands of men whom he had incensed, and 
that his life had been spared, owing to Odyssevs. But 



THE KINGDOM OF ODYSSEVS 261 

the wily and gallant courtier only replied by telling 
the queen that if suitors were a cause of pain to her, 
she ought to be thankful for never having been seen 
in other parts of the Greek world, because in that case 
the number of importunate suitors lured and tempted 
by her beauty would have been much greater. 

Odyssevs was a brave man and fond of toil and 
wiles. But, nevertheless, it was against his will that 
he had joined the great expedition against Ilion. He 
loved his native land and his near surroundings too 
intensely to willingly be separated from them. He 
was an exemplary patriot in the more genuine sense 
of the word, the narrow sense. The rocky and some- 
what barren quality of the island has been a motive 
for giving high praise to Odyssevs for this wonderful 
love of his fatherland. When the witch Kalypso, as 
above stated, offered to make him divine and free 
from death forever if he would renounce his deter- 
mination to return home he felt that he would be 
willing to die at once if only he could be allowed to 
see even from afar the smoke rising up from the altar- 
hearth of his home. 

But once that circumstances made it imperative for 
him to participate in the expedition, from that moment 
he became in it a leading spirit. During the ten years 
of the mythic siege, his cunning and wisdom and 
strong arms were incessantly employed for the good 
weal of his Achaean countrymen. After the war was 
over, he set out to return home. But adverse winds 
and repeated shipwreck and various thrilling and 
wonderful adventures and hardships kept him roving 
over unknown seas for ten weary years. The gods 



262 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

had become vexed with him, and the gods were 
punishing him. 

Finally, after these twenty years of enforced ab- 
sence, the wanderer wakes up from a heavy sleep, and 
finds himself in a country which he cannot recognize, 
although it is his own beloved Ithaka. His eyes have 
been purposely covered with a mist by his protectress, 
the goddess Athena. He had been brought hither by 
the honest Phaeak seamen, who had promised to bring 
him to his native kingdom. They had placed him and 
his treasures ashore while he was asleep, and had re- 
turned to their own land. From the lips of the god- 
dess, disguised as a sprightly shepherd, he heard the 
blissful fact that the land where he is disembarked is 
the beautiful Ithaka. The bay where Homer localizes 
this arrival of the returning king was called the harbor 
of Phorkyn. Sober scholars like Partsch have been 
willing to conjecture that the harbor of Phorkyn was 
no other than the port of the modern capital of the 
island, the town of Bathy. This place would then 
have been merely a country district, some three or four 
hours distant from the castle of Odyssevs. The 
wonder is that in antiquity this bay was not more 
frequented. But as appears from the yet existing 
signs of ancient habitations, the towns of Ithaka were 
on the western shore, while this bay is on the eastern 
side of the island. 

Then Athena allowed Odyssevs to divine her per- 
sonality. Aided by her he concealed in the cave of 
the Nymphs the valuable presents that the Phseaks had 
given to him. Then he set off to return to his castle 
and to Penelope and his son and father. In order not 



THE KINGDOM OF ODYSSEVS 263 

to meet with any untoward fate at the hands of his 
enemies, he went disguised as a mendicant. 

He first came to the strong keep where his faithful 
henchman, the swineherd Evmaeos, had his huts, and 
guarded the herds of royal swine. Here he spent the 
night, well entertained by the hospitable boor, and 
here he met his son Telemachos, who had just re- 
turned from an eventful journey to the Peloponnesos 
in search of his father. Here Odyssevs learned from 
Telemachos the conduct of the suitors. Father and 
son planned out the process by which they hoped to 
destroy the revelers and to reobtain the kingdom for 
its rightful sovereign. 

On the following day Telemachos proceeded to the 
town. After a short interval the disguised Odyssevs 
followed. When he arrived the suitors were enjoying 
themselves at one of their usual revelings. Among 
all the proud guests assembled not one, not even Penel- 
ope herself, recognized the disguised sovereign. Only 
his decrepit hunting-dog, Argos, which lay in the sun 
at the entrance to the palace, pierced the disguise of 
years and habiliment, and knew his master. Sympa- 
thetic and touching are the gentle lines of the poet, 
where is described how the faithful old dog, on seeing 
his long-absent master approach, knows him imme- 
diately, although clothed in rags, lifts up his head, 
wags his tail, tries to crawl to Odyssevs, but dies in 
the emotion of the effort. Odyssevs, noticing the glad 
recognition of the feeble but true old dog, began to 
cry, but hid his tears, because the moment for him to 
reveal himself had not yet come. Odyssevs entered 
his ancestral halls, where he was greeted with insults 



264 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

of all kinds, but had the sympathy of Penelope, who 
called him and asked him if he could tell her anything 
about her absent lord, and if he had ever met him in 
his mendicant wanderings. The disguised king 
awakened strange hopes in her heart by telling her 
many things which showed that he knew something 
about Odyssevs, and then prophetically added that on 
that very night Odyssevs would return to Ithaka. 
Penelope did not believe this, but, nevertheless, was 
consoled to hear such statements, even though not 
destined to be true. 

Night came on and the hospitality of Penelope 
furnished to Odyssevs the privilege of sleeping in the 
palace. A maid, an ancient servant of the house, who 
came to bathe him, sees an old cicatrix on his foot and 
recognizes her dear master. But Odyssevs, by putting 
his hand on her mouth, prevented her cry of aston- 
ished joy, and warned her not yet to reveal his identity. 
Odyssevs and Telemachos then stealthily carried to 
an upper room all the weapons that were in the great 
hall, so that on the following day, which was to see 
the suitors' doom, they might not find wherewith to 
defend themselves. 

After various other events on the following day, 
the suitors again gathered into the great hall for a 
new feast. The disguised king was present as the 
guest of Telemachos. In spite of his being thus under 
the protection of the heir apparent of the castle, he 
was derided and insulted anew. 

Then the queen Penelope entered the convivial hall 
and addressed to the suitors a strange speech. She 
declared that at last she would yield to the wishes of 



THE KINGDOM OF ODYSSEVS 265 

the suitors, and would accept for her husband from 
among them him who would send an arrow through 
the eyes of a row of axe-heads, using the bow which 
Odyssevs had left in the palace when he went off to 
Ilion. In her heart she knew that none of these pol- 
ished youths could bend that bow. The axes were 
placed in position, and the suitors received the arrows 
and bow from the hands of Penelope. None of them 
succeeded in using the stiff bow. Then Antinoos, the 
haughtiest of the suitors, tried to cover their dis- 
comfiture by saying that they were engaged in the 
enjoyment of a festive day, and that such contests 
should be postponed for the morrow. Odyssevs then 
asked for permission to try his strength. The suitors 
naturally refused with insults to give to a beggar per- 
mission to participate in their trials of manliness. But 
Telemachos and Penelope gave him their permission, 
and the swineherd who was present as a servant handed 
to Odyssevs the bow before the suitors could prevent. 
With an easy pull Odyssevs opened the bow wide out, 
and sent an arrow straight through all the axe-heads. 

Before the suitors could recover from their sur- 
prise, he had again fitted an arrow to the string, and 
had sent it through the heart of the insulting Antinoos. 
Then in terrible voice he declared his identity. The 
suitors rushed against' him, but all were either shot 
down by Odyssevs or dispatched by the swords of 
Telemachos, Evmseos, and Philcetios. None were 
spared save the minstrel Phemios and the herald Me- 
don. Then the bodies were carried out and purifica- 
tory rites and sacrifices were performed. Thus did 
Odyssevs regain possession of his little realm. 



266 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

Before this bloody scene began, Penelope had re- 
tired to her own apartments. The nurse who had 
recognized Odyssevs from the old cicatrix then 
hastened to her and told her of the doom that had 
befallen the suitors, and that the valiant mendicant 
who had accomplished the feat was none other than 
Odyssevs. Penelope was anxiously incredulous. But 
by a conversation with Odyssevs she was convinced. 
Odyssevs was then by Athena's power restored to the 
bloom of youth. 

On the following day Odyssevs and his son went 
out into the country to where his father, the aged 
Laertes, lived the life of a gardner, passing his aged 
days in mourning over the loss of Odyssevs. Odys- 
sevs disclosed himself and the rejoicing was great. 

In the meantime the kinsmen of the suitors rose 
up in insurrection. A battle ensued which was brought 
to an end by mighty thunder sent from the sky by 
Zevs. The opposing parties concluded a peace. And 
thus ends the story of Odyssevs. 

It is quite probable that the poet of the Odyssey 
had no intention whatsoever of describing Ithaka as 
it really was. Accordingly, it is futile to try to recog- 
nize and identify the many places which he mentions. 
There is indeed no difficulty whatsoever in finding on 
the island sites that correspond most singularly with 
his descriptions. But the reason for this is because his 
descriptions are very indefinite. It is not difficult to 
recognize, as do Professor Manatt and others, the 
sheer precipice of Raven Rock, near which Evmseos' 
herds used to fatten themselves on acorns, or 
Phorkyn's harbor, where the Phaeak sailors disem- 



THE KINGDOM OF ODYSSEVS 267 

barked with Odyssevs, or Black Water fountain, or 
the cave of the Nymphs, where Odyssevs concealed 
his treasures, or the Garden of Laertes, or the site of 
the Homeric town and Castle of Odyssevs. Enthusi- 
astic Homer-lovers have found congenial spots for all 
these scenes and sites of the poem. Only the island 
Asteris, back of which the impudent suitors secreted 
themselves when they waylaid Telemachos in order to 
assassinate him, only this island puzzles all who try 
to find its site. Where is it? 

In purely historic times Ithaka played no part in the 
events of the world, and therefore the island is seldom 
mentioned. The earliest historic appearance of the 
name is on coins. But these coins are not older than the 
fourth century before Christ. The immense gap from 
Homer to the minting of these coins is filled by no 
positive information. In later times it is true that 
occasionally the poets could not refrain from mention- 
ing Ithaka, but they always referred to the mythic 
Ithaka of the past. Thus, for example, Virgil, in 
describing a portion of the route of yEneas through 
the Ionian Sea, sings that 

Effugimus scopulos Ithacae Laertia regna, 
et terram altricem saevi execramur Ulyssei. 

Outside of the poets, Ithaka is mentioned by 
Strabon, and in two inscriptions found in Magnesia 
on the Mseander, and by Heliodoros, who wrote the 
jiEthiopic Adventures in about the fourth century of 
our era. After Heliodoros the name is found in the 
writings of Emanuel Komnenos and of the Arabian 
geographer, Idrisi. After the twelfth century the 



268 HELLAD1AN VISTAS 

name no more appears in books until comparatively 
modern times. 

On account of the great gaps in the written tradi- 
tion, and on account of the fact that modern Ithaka 
does not geographically bear to the mainland exactly 
the relations that are given to it by the poet's descrip- 
tion, some Homeric scholars have wished to doubt, or 
even deny, the identity of modern Ithaka and that of 
the Odyssey. The doubt is almost gratuitous. But, 
nevertheless, once that it has been seriously expressed, 
no amount of investigation may ever be able either to 
confirm it or to disprove it. The testimony is, at least 
at present, entirely too slight to give scientific value 
to any attempted solution. Tradition holds that here 
is Ithaka. Such tradition is to be revered. Dorpfeld, 
a master mind in kindred matters, thinks that Homer's 
Ithaka was the island which is now called Levkas. But 
until he proves his opinion, Ithaka should remain 
(vhere Ithaka now is. 



IN LEVKAS 

The island of Levkas is reached four times a week 
by steamers from Peirseevs, the port of Athens, and 
once a week by freight vessels from Kerkyra. It also 
has overland communication with the outside world 
by means of pack-donkeys to the towns of Agrinion 
and Bonitsa in the province of Akarnania. 

Both for its history and its charming quaintness, 
Levkas is an attractive nook of Greece for such as 
chance to wander into it through love for the not yet 
commonplace, and have disposition and leisure to 
revel in its restful life. 

Levkas like the other Ionian Islands, and in common 
with many other countries of Greece, has had a pre- 
historic period in the history of its inhabitants. It 
came into local importance long before its first den- 
izens or their neighbors had learned to write their 
history. No monuments and no records narrate the 
vicissitudes of the people who first lived here. Were 
they the sons of Shem or were they of Japhetic origin, 
or what were they? We do not know. In the north- 
west corner of the island, along the ridge of a high 
and rocky hill, stretch the remains of a once mighty 
town and citadel, built, as story loves to repeat, by a 
race of giants, the Kyklopes. Placing myth aside 
however, these walls represent a civilization that 
flourished here in comparatively modern times. They 
are not older than four or five hundred years before 
Christ. But by the recent German researches, it has 

269 



270 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

been proven that cities existed on this island in the 
remote ages when the "Mykenlanders" lorded it over 
Greece. In literature we possess venerable mention of 
this country, if the Homeric names of "Akte Epeirou, ,, 
or, as others think, that of "Doulichion" are ancient 
appellations of this island or portions of it. Professor 
Dorpfeld, one of the foremost of archaeologists, has 
suspected that Levkas is the country which Homer 
describes under the name of "Ithaka," a supposition 
which if possibly true, can never be proven. At any 
rate, it is perhaps with the history of the heroic age 
in which the Trojan War was fought that this land 
first makes itself known in literature to posterity. 

Levkas is quite small, its area being something less 
than one hundred square miles. Physically it has the 
peculiarity of having been more than once not as it 
now is, an island, but a peninsular projection, an "akte 
epeirou," of Akarnania. Its successive changes from 
promontory to island and from island to promontory 
are explained by the fact that the narrow strait 
which separates Levkas from Akarnania has the habit 
of silting up with sand that keeps forever rolling down 
into it from the hills on either side. There is no tide 
or other regular current to wash the channel clear 
again. Twice does history record the renewal of the 
channel artificially in the ages before the birth of 
Christ. And in our own days the work has been done 
again. 

In the sixth century before Christ, Dorian colonists 
from the rich and enterprising city of Korinth, sent 
out by the famous prince Kypselos, came into Levkas 
and established themselves as merchants and artisans. 



IN LEVKAS 271 

Through their superior activity, commercial intelli- 
gence, and bravery, they soon became masters of the 
island, and reduced the older inhabitants to a state of 
subjugation. They were the first who were known to 
have cut the island loose from the mainland. They 
opened a channel deep enough for their largest ships 
of commerce, and thus made it possible to communi- 
cate by water with Korinth and the other important 
cities of Greece without having to trust their ships to 
the storms that rage in the open Ionian Sea along the 
west coast of Levkas. They built a new city close to 
the new-cut waterway, or at least extended Nerikos, 
the city of the aborigines, from its citadel heights 
down to the water front. The name of Levkas was 
brought to the island and to its new city by these 
Dorian settlers. With them does the name first appear 
in documentary history. Why they called the island 
so, and what the meaning of the name may be we do 
not surely know. 

This colonial town, founded more than twenty-five 
hundred years ago, makes its last appearance in ancient 
history in the year 197 before Christ, when it gloriously 
withstood a protracted siege, keeping at bay a well- 
equipped army of Roman soldiers, until, as Livy re- 
lates, some Italian exiles that resided in the city 
treacherously opened an entrance for their besieging 
countrymen. Careful and repeated examination of 
the site of this ancient Dorian colony of Levkas re- 
vealed to me nothing of the old city save a portion of 
its walls, together with substructures and architectural 
fragments of buildings erected after the city had 
become a Roman possession. My examinations, how- 



272 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

ever, were necessarily not thorough. German archae- 
ologists have since my visit carefully examined all the 
ruins on the island. Even the cemeteries have kept 
but scant and unsatisfactory account of these busy 
merchants of yore. For the few epigraphs still to be 
easily found commemorate not the old Korinthian 
settlers but their successors, native and adventitious, 
who lived here under Roman sway after the year 197 
before Christ. Among these sepulchral inscriptions 
are some which contain Latin names. None of the 
stones are such as would indicate that the individuals 
buried near them were of high rank. Still many a cel- 
ebrated Roman visited Levkas, and possibly not a few 
distinguished exiles, or others who found it necessary 
to live at a distance from the eternal city, may have 
taken up their permanent abode here. 

After the Roman Italians became a people of cul- 
ture and lovers of tradition, the scholars and poets of 
Italy loved to seize every clue which tended to show 
truly or speciously that their nation was closely con- 
nected in tradition and fame with the historic east. 
An illustration is furnished us here. For in Levkas 
just outside the walls of the town there stood in classic 
days a fine Doric temple sacred to "Aphrodite ^neias." 
And many a famous Roman, including Cicero, proudly 
visited this shrine, because their poets and historians 
informed them that this temple had been built by the 
mythological founder of Latin nobility, ^Eneas, the 
son of Anchises. Livy narrates that iEneas in his long 
flight to Rome from the lost city of Troy was obliged 
to make a pilgrimage to Dodona in Epeiros in order to 
discover his future fate by consulting the oracle of 



IN LEVKAS 273 

Zevs, who there had a most sacred place of prophecy. 
On his way to Dodona, ^neas passed through Levkas 
and tarried long enough to erect this shrine to his 
mother, the goddess Aphrodite. 

The modern town is situated a few minutes' walk 
northwest from the site of the ancient Doric city and 
citadel. From this modern town one can look across 
the bay to the promontory of Aktion, in former ages 
famous for its temple of Apollon, but forever to be 
famous because here in the year 31 before Christ the 
fate of the Roman empire and of the world was de- 
cided in the well-known naval battle where the young 
Octavian won for himself the irrevocable authority of 
emperor and the title of Augustus, by defeating the 
fleets of Antony and his Hellenic ally, Kleopatra. A 
little farther to the north glitter under the sun the 
white houses and dirty barracks of the Turkish town of 
Preveza. It is the modern successor of old Nikopolis, 
"the city of victory," which this same proud emperor 
built from the spoils of the neighboring Hellenic cities, 
including Levkas, as an everlasting monument to> his 
stupendous good fortune. But the inroads of Goths 
and Vandals and Bulgarians, followed by the microbes 
of malarial fevers, have been more powerful than the 
mighty will of Augustus, and the well-built walls and 
edifices of Nikopolis now stand deserted, ruined, and 
haunted in the marshes west of Preveza. 

On the island of Levkas, besides the modern town, 
there are several prosperous villages ; but none of them 
can boast of ancient age. The present capital now 
bears the same name as the island itself, but when 
first founded it was called Santa Maura. It is not 



274 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

even the oldest of the modern settlements. At its 
beginning in the year 1445, it was simply a group of 
fishermens' huts. It then took its name of Santa 
Maura in honor of the virgin saint who was patroness 
of the Venetian fort which commands the entrance to 
the harbor. It has also been called "Hamaxike" or 
"wagon-town," since it and its suburbs are the only 
portions of the island sufficiently non-mountainous to 
admit the use of vehicles drawn by horses. These 
two names of Santa Maura and Hamaxike are still 
in popular use, especially the former; although the 
name employed in official documents is always 
"Levkas." 

No one thinks of Levkas without associating there- 
with the name and fame of the most renowned poetess 
of all antiquity, and perhaps of all time. As has been 
expressed by one of her most devoted admirers and at 
the same time most competent critics, the late Byzantios 
of Triest, "while she ranks not so high as a specimen 
of woman noble and true, yet she stands on the very 
pinnacle of fame as a singer of love sublime." 

Toward the south, the island of Levkas ends in a 
long promontory of light-colored stone, extending out 
into the sea in the direction of Ithaka. The west side 
of this promontory is almost perpendicular, rising to 
the height of about one hundred and ninety feet above 
the water. It is on this rock that tradition locates the 
spot from which Sappho flung herself into the sea. In 
geopraphy the promontory is called Levkata, or White 
Rock, but in the language of the natives it is known 
as "Sappho's Leap." The story of her death is well 
known but is always misinterpreted. Following By- 



IN LEVKAS 275 

zantios, it may merely be remarked that this myth was 
created by such of her unhistoric admirers as instinc- 
tively felt that the woman who had so wonderfully 
described the mysterious phenomenon of love, and had 
herself raved under the tortures of Eros was doomed 
not to die after the manner of ordinary women 
wrinkled with old age or robbed of her beauty by 
sickness, but that her fervid and restless life should be 
fitly closed by a mysterious and extraordinary death. 
However, the original form of the myth did not at all 
teach that by leaping into the waves of Levkata Sappho 
sought to die, but rather that she hoped to rise again 
from the dripping foam cured of her affection for 
Phaon. 

It is said that the prehistoric Levkadians, like the 
Jews and other primitive peoples, believed in the 
efficacy of vicarious atonement. But more inhuman 
than the Jews of Moses' time, who heaped all the sins 
of the people on an unfortunate goat, destined to be 
driven away and compelled to wander off with his 
load of others' crimes upon him, these men of Levkas 
chose a human victim. This fated man they selected 
from among those convicted of crime. If the story 
has any truth in it, they used cruelly to hurl these 
vicarious atoners from the top of Levkata into the sea, 
ages before the story about the Lesbian poetess made 
the place more romantically famous. The friends 
of the condemned victim had the privilege of trying to 
diminish the rapidity and fatality of his fall by fasten- 
ing artificial wings upon him, and by tying doves and 
other birds to him. If he escaped death in his plunge, 



276 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

his friends in boats below rescued him and he was 
allowed to live. 

Sappho was not a native of this island. The myth 
locates here not her life as a poetess but merely her 
death as a victim. As a matter of fact, however, it 
is probable that she never visited this promontory of 
Levkata at all, but died in her own native land of 
Lesbos. 

One has to descend to modern times in order to 
hear the words of song again associated with Levkas, 
but is rewarded by finding that the island has become 
the home and nourishing-place of new-born poetry, 
and not merely the storied scene of a romantic poet's 
death. Two excellent modern writers of lyric verses 
were natives of Levkas. These are Zampelios and 
Balaorites, men of high rank among the poets of 
modern Greece, poets who have the privilege and 
ability of composing their verses in the language of the 
gods — the language of Sappho and Pindar and Homer. 

Zampelios, who died in 1856, was in sentiment an 
intense patriot in the cause of Greek independence, 
and at the beginning of the present century was even 
a member of the well-known Philike Hetaeria. He 
wrote poetry of a kind suited to express his hopes and 
to awaken and comfort the patriotic aspirations of the 
oppressed rajahs of the Turkish empire. He wrote 
chiefly dramas. Among these are Marko Botsares, 
George Kastriot, and Diakos, the titles of which 
sufficiently indicate the patriotic nature of the compo- 
sitions. 

His fellow-townsman Balaorites, though born in 
Levkas, was descended from a family whose original 



IN LEVKAS 277 

home was in a wild town of continental Greece. The 
family came as refugees from Turkish power into 
Levkas, in the sixteenth century, when Levkas was a 
Venetian possession. The Venetian government allot- 
ted to these exiles certain tracts of land which the 
survivors of the family still retain. The Venetian gov- 
ernment even recognized the family as "noble," and 
since 1702 the Balaorites were recorded in the "golden 
book" of Venetian aristocracy. But the poet was not 
merely a gilded aristocrat. He was an intense lover 
and admirer of the simple peasants of the country 
districts of Levkas, and spent much of his time among 
them, collecting their traditions, their folk-lore, and 
songs, and studying their rugged language. His 
poems, mostly lyric, break forth in praise of the wild 
and uneasy life of this class of people here and in the 
neighboring mainland, especially during the days of 
servitude. His poems are worthy of his struggling 
country whose woes and virtues and follies he sings. 
It would indeed be praiseworthy in his countrymen to 
honor his memory visibly as emphatically as they do 
in their hearts by erecting a suitable monument to 
him either in Levkas or in the little sland of Maduri, 
where he used to spend much of his time. His grave 
in the old and abandoned cemetery behind the church 
of the Pantokrator is marked by a plain marble slab 
with no other information than the date of his birth 
and death. 

Levkas, after having been successively independent, 
subject to the West, and subject to Byzantion, became, 
like its sister islands of the Ionian group, a Venetian 
possession in the thirteenth century, and remained now 



278 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

Venetian now Turkish down to the year 1797. Then 
it was rapidly shuffled from master to master, until 
finally in 181 5, it came under English control. So 
did it remain until 1864, when the Ionian Islands all 
became a portion of the kingdom of Greece. 

During the Greek war for independence, Levkas, 
being under the comparatively humane government of 
England, served, as well as the other islands, as a place 
of refuge for many a hounded patriot from the 
swamps of Bonitsa or the mountain gorges of Evry- 
tania, for whose head some Pasha had promised 
money and favor. 

But even before the coming of the English, Levkas 
was, under the Venetians, a haven of safety. Many, 
like the Valaorites, came and abode here permanently. 
Others, however, much more numerous used tempo- 
rarily to cross over the narrow separating straits, 
remain under cover while their pursuers were near, 
and return to the fastnesses of the Agraphiot moun- 
tains and Akarnanian marshes when the pursuers with- 
drew to a convenient distance. This ease which Levkas 
afforded to the klephts, more than once enraged the 
Pashas of the mainland. And in 1807, the infamous 
Ali, Pasha of Ioannina, whom Byron so often men- 
tioned, determined to capture and destroy the city. 
With an army of five thousand Albanian savages, on 
horseback, lured hither by Ali's promise that the 
wealth and women of the Levkadians would be 
divided among them, Ali came to the ford. But see- 
ing that the inhabitants had been advised of the raid, 
and under the leadership of a young Kerkyrsean, John 
Kapodistrias, who later had the honor of being the 



IN LEVKAS 279 

first president of free Greece, had put themselves into 
position for successful defense, he withdrew. 

The entrance to the modern town from the sea was 
protected in Venetian times by what was then a for- 
midable fort — la fortezza di Santa Maura. It still 
stands, but today is useless as a defense. It serves 
simply as a storehouse for material of war, and as 
barracks for the small company of soldiers stationed 
on the island. It is built on a rocky shoal in the shal- 
low waters north of the town, and is joined to the 
town by a road built through the water, half a mile 
in length. In this fort the local Venetian government 
used to stay, and from here the Queen of the Adriatic 
ruled this island. It was not the policy of Venice to 
come into close and unrestricted familiar contact with 
the peoples over which she had control. 

This modern town of Santa Maura, or Levkas, is 
a peculiar one. Perhaps of all the Ionian towns it is 
one of the most prosperous, although from its un- 
pretentious squatty appearance one might suspect the 
opposite. The island lies in the earthquake region 
and often suffers seriously thereby. Damage from 
earthquakes is greatest in places where the soil beneath 
the buildings is not solid, as is the case with the town 
of Levkas. Most of the houses are built not upon hard 
soil or rock but upon a sandy earth formed by deposit 
from the surrounding mountains, or created artificially 
by filling up a portion of the shallow bay. For this 
reason even a slight shaking of the earth affects the 
houses here, and for the sake of security it has been 
found necessary to use two precautions, first to build 
the houses low, and secondly to use stone for the lower 



280 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

story only. Accordingly in the entire town there are 
not a dozen houses higher than two stories, while at 
least one-third of all the houses are only one story 
high. Of the houses that have two or more floors, the 
stories above the first are always built of wood. And 
since neither wood nor carpentry is of the best quality, 
and paint is rarely used, lime colors however occasion- 
ally being resorted to, the crooked rows of houses, 
ranged along the narrow streets, present a shaggy 
appearance, and the casual observer might think that 
they would not resist much of a shaking. My Ameri- 
can fellow-traveler who roomed with me in one of 
these sui generis houses, had been sincerely wishing 
to experience here a classic but gentle earthquake. The 
quake came one morning before the professor had 
said his morning prayers, and the untimeliness of the 
visit of Poseidon, together with the peculiar rubbing 
sound of the moving brick tiles on the roof over his 
head probably caused him to desire no continued ac- 
quaintance with the earth-shaking god. These anti- 
seismic houses were first built here by the practical 
English. And the sensible mode, once set, has ever 
since sensibly been followed. 

But wooden architecture does not easily adapt itself 
to Hellenic styles. And on this account the antiseismic 
style of architecture so commonly adopted in Levkas 
has not yet found favor in Zakynthos and other places 
equally subject to serious earthquakes. There are 
even here in Levkas a few houses where, instead of 
using wood, attempt to withstand the shocks has been 
made by building the walls of heavy and well-hewn 
stone. This plan was adopted by the "resident," who, 



IN LEVKAS 281 

under the English protectorate, represented the govern- 
ment. He undertook to erect an imposing temple to 
the patron saint of the island, Santa Maura. In the 
outskirts of the olive grove east of the city he deter- 
mined to build a cathedral sacred to her. The work 
began. But the idea only half pleased the native 
Levkadians, who began to dislike the fact that a 
"heterodox" Christian should have the honor of erect- 
ing the proudest church in the city, and to their special 
patron. Moreover the "resident," in place of having 
new stone quarried out of the mountain side for this 
structure, found it easier simply to appropriate the 
colossal stones from the fallen walls of the ancient 
city. This "profanation of antiquity" occasioned 
tumults and riots. The work was interrupted, and the 
building remains and will remain an uncompleted 
conception. And every Levkadian as he passes by 
remembers the text, "this man began to build, but 
could not finish." 

The Levkadian of today is an industrious and quiet 
man. He never stays out late at night, unless he be 
of the "higher class." Then he is accustomed to de- 
vote the evening to social pleasures, especially during 
the "opera" season, and at carnival time. Otherwise 
he enjoys no more violent amusement than a cup of 
Turkish coffee and a cigarette in mid-afternoon, or 
after supper in the evening. If he has sufficient 
leisure, he invariably takes an hour's gentle walk every 
afternoon at five or six o'clock. And this walk, in 
winter time, if the colder season here can be called by 
the name of winter, almost invariably brings him 
through the magnificent olive groves that surround 



282 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the town, to a cafe of great local renown, Kouzoundeli. 
In summer he strolls down along the road which leads 
through the sea to the old Venetian fort, to be cooled 
by the evening breeze which unfailingly at four o'clock 
every afternoon begins to blow from across the Medi- 
terranean, and to enjoy the view of the sea and moun- 
tains and setting sun. 

At Kouzoundeli he sits for half an hour with one 
or two friends and discusses politics, like a true Greek 
condemning everything without however expressing 
or even possessing an opinion of his own on the matter 
under discussion. During this quiet debate he drinks 
an enormous glass of water and the above-mentioned 
tiny cup of coffee. The water is from a special well, 
to which the Cafe Kouzoundeli owes its fame and 
success. A true oriental in this respect, he regards 
water as the most glorious of all beverages — indeed it 
is in the East often the scarcest. On Sunday after- 
noons and on feast-days, when the ladies of the town 
accompany their husbands and brothers in this stroll, 
the picture at Kouzoundeli is quite attractive. 

A further word must be said about the olive groves 
here. The immense forest of olive trees, although not 
divided by fences or ditches or walls, is however not 
the possession of a single owner, but belongs by inher- 
itance to a large number of individuals, each one of 
whom owns a certain number of trees. The life of an 
olive tree is practically everlasting. And just as land 
or other immovable property remains an inheritance 
in the same family for generations, so here in the East 
an olive tree or a well may be deeded down through 
centuries as a private possession without any reference 



IN LEVKAS 283 

to the field in which the tree or well may be. Here in 
Levkas these olive trees date from the fifteenth century, 
and were planted in response to a circular which the 
Venetian government issued, giving a prize in money 
for every olive tree that anyone might plant, in any 
of the Ionian Islands. Besides the prize, the planter 
became the owner of the trees, and could sell them or 
bequeath them to others, independently of the land. 
He might under certain circumstances plant the trees 
in another man's field, or in lands belonging to the 
public domain. All the splendid groves in these islands 
are due to this interested patronage of the Venetian 
republic. Each tree in this extensive grove has the 
initials of its owner cut in the bark. As the custom 
of attaching dowries to marriageable daughters exists 
here, one may often hear that the dowry of some dark- 
eyed Penelope or Terpsichore consists of a certain 
number of olive trees. So inviolable is this tree- 
ownership, that over in Kephallenia, where the same 
custom exists, a case came to my attention where a 
single tree standing in the middle of a garden was 
owned by a person different from the proprietor of 
the land. The owner of the garden, after having 
long tried in vain to purchase the tree by offering an 
exorbitant price, resorted to the violent plan of burn- 
ing the tree. When proven to> have burned it, he was 
compelled to suffer a term of imprisonment, pay fines, 
remunerate the owner heavily, and he dare not now 
uproot the charred and blackened stump and trunk 
of the tree, which still stands in his garden, and makes 
him an object of the jokes of his neighbors. 

The evening stroll in summer time is, as has been 



284 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

said, down along the road which connects the town 
and the fort. Parallel with this road the shallow sea 
has been deepened into a good canal about one hundred 
feet wide. At the extreme end of the road, near the 
fort, are located cafes, and bathing-houses. Many 
who do not wish to walk so far, choose to be carried 
up and down in little barks which, with the zephyr 
from across the Adriatic, shoot along propelled by one 
large sail, and guided straight as an arrow by the easy 
skill of these best and surest of boaters. From the 
fort they look across the Adriatic at the setting sun, 
than which in all his life the writer saw but one more 
glorious — in the Bay of Kerkyra. To the north they 
see, behind Preveza and the Gulf of Arta, the rugged 
tops of the mountains of Epeiros, and to the east the 
hills of Akarnania and the outshoots of lofty Pindos. 
Nor are the mountains of Levkas herself, rising south 
of the city behind the olive groves, less beautiful with 
their darker hues, caused by the shrubbery that grows 
on them. 

Over toward the northwest, like a blue bubble on 
the blue sea, is the larger of the two islands of Paxos, 
a sweet and quiet place worthy of a visit from any- 
one who wishes to see what real seclusion is. It was 
while sailing in the waters between Levkas and Paxos 
that a certain crew of sailors heard the wonderful 
voice calling out at the moment at which Christ ex- 
pired on the cross, announcing that Pan, the Universal 
God, had died. Plutarch tells the story in his de 
Dejecta Oraculorum, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning 
has put it into song : 



IN LEVKAS 285 

'Twas the hour when One in Sion 

Hung for love's sake on the Cross, 

When his brow was chill with dying, 
And his soul was faint with loss. 

When his priestly blood dropped downward 
And his kingly eyes looked throneward — 
Then Pan was dead. 

Levkas is quite a productive island, not so much, 
however, on account of the suitableness of the soil 
as of the industry of the peasants. The chief products 
sent off to outside markets are wine and olive oil. 
The wine is dark, and is so full of color that one 
could easily write with it. Perhaps few other wines 
in all the markets of the world are dark to such a de- 
gree as is this. It is sent to northern Italy, and 
sometimes to France, to be used there in giving color 
to other wines. It would command a high price in the 
markets were it not that the natives, not knowing 
how to preserve it otherwise, put gypsum into it, 
which injures it seriously. It is sold here by the 
producers for the incomprehensibly low price of 
about two pennies a gallon, and is retailed in the wine 
shops of the town at the price of two glasses for a 
penny. The peasants bring it into town in sacks made 
of skins, two sacks being strapped to the sides of the 
wooden saddle on a donkey, which trudges along as 
lazily as possible with his load of purple nectar. 

The Levkadians, though now a well-behaved 
people, have in the past been sufficiently wicked and 
sufficiently dangerous. In the last century when 
piracy still flourished in this part of the world, the 
island of Levkas was one of the places where the 
vessels of the pirates used often to hide, and many a 



286 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

friend did these pirates have among the inhabitants 
of the smaller villages of the island. Today of course 
this is merely past and pleasant history. The old 
pirates.' ships are now, however, in a measure repre- 
sented by the cunning little craft that succeed in elud- 
ing the government patrol boats, and landing cargoes 
of contraband goods from Turkey and elsewhere. Duty 
on all imports is extremely high, and the daring ad- 
venturer who succeeds in occasionally bringing in a 
boatload of sugar or coffee or other necessary com- 
modity, can live comfortably on his gains. And the 
numerous small bays around the island, together with 
its nearness to the Turkish frontier and the Turkish 
ports of Parga and Preveza, make this running past 
the patrol not so extremely difficult. This contraband 
practice is not regarded as a matter of dishonesty here. 
The government, for reasons that cannot be briefly 
explained, instead of collecting its customs itself, 
sometimes sells this privilege to the highest bidder. 
Accordingly the common feeling of the simple but 
yet wily inhabitant who deals in contraband articles 
is, not that he is cheating his country, but merely 
outwitting those who set about robbing him. Even 
one of the most respected citizens of the island, a 
venerable clergyman, thinks it no sin periodically to 
cross over to Preveza, the Turkish frontier town, and 
bring back under the concealing folds of his ample 
cloak supplies of coffee and sugar and cigars — these 
last for his friends — and when he wishes to give a 
modest dinner to a few guests, under his cassock he 
bravely imports live chickens and other contraband 
articles just as wonderfully concealed. And no Lev- 



IN LEVKAS 287 

kadian who knows of his skilfulness blames him 
for it. 

In the last short war between Turkey and Greece, 
in 1897, Levkas was not wanting in patriotism. But 
unarmed peasant patriotism, how brave soever it be, 
cannot stand against Krupp guns and Mauser rifles. 
The few untrained Levkadian volunteers who sta- 
tioned themselves on the promontory of Aktion were 
absolutely of no use, but yet deserve not to be for- 
gotten. The school boys who dragged a cannon from 
Levkas to the earth works opposite Preveza have also 
earned the right of being remembered. Nor should I 
allow it to be forgotten that in this fiasco of a war 
Levkas had her phil-Hellene. For the first gun which 
here blazed across the line, boldly even if vainly flash- 
ing and roaring a hope of future freedom to the 
Christian slaves over in Epeiros, was fired by an Irish 
student, Burke. 



THE FLOWER OF THE EAST 

"Zante, Zante, Fior di Levante." 

Of all the Ionian Islands, Zakynthos has for cen- 
turies enjoyed the reputation of being the most 
beautiful. Poets and travelers have long known and 
praised it as the Flower of the East. But natural 
scenery is usually not attractive except when associated 
with the history and acts of man. So it is with 
Zakynthos, as with every nook and corner of Greece. 
Its beauty is magnified by the long history of the 
nations who have from time to time dwelt in its vales 
and on its hills. 

Zakynthos never ceased, from prehistoric times 
down to today, to be a choice and frequented center of 
population. Although, like its sister Ionian Islands, it 
suffered frequently and severely from pirates and in- 
vaders, it never became desolate. This continual 
presence of inhabitants has made Zakynthos a fruitless 
field for the archaeologist and antiquarian. Few are 
the ancient walls, few the foundations of buildings 
destroyed centuries ago, few the inscriptions and 
works of ancient art that are here visible. It is chiefly 
abandonment and desolation that preserve to posterity 
the signs of the remote past. In human progress, 
civilized man continually busies himself with destroy- 
ing the past in order to create something that is better, 
or at least more necessary to him in his new surround- 
ings. But the very hills and valleys of Zakynthos 

288 



THE FLOWER OF THE EAST 289 

speak, for they are still instinct with the past life of 
the men who once trod across them. 

Zakynthos is a small island, containing not more 
than 295 square miles of surface. The island is long 
and narrow, running from north to south. It lies but 
two hours distant by steamer from the west coast of 
the Peloponnesos of Greece, and in antedeluvian 
times constituted a part of the mainland. It has been 
violently separated from the mainland by earthquake. 
In shape, the island consists simply of two rows of 
mountains, one along the east coast, and the other 
rising from the edge of the sea along the western 
shore, and between these two mountain chains is 
stretched out a beautiful basin of a valley, which has 
been formed by ages of soil washed down from the 
mountains that flank it on the east and on the west. 

The western mountain range is much the more 
extensive, and fills almost one-half of the area of the 
entire island. The grandeur of these mountains is 
due not so much to their size, as to the fact that they 
rise almost from the edge of the water. The loftiest 
top of this imposing range is about 2,275 feet above 
the level of the Mediterranean. 

While the hills of the western half of the island are 
grand and rough, those of the eastern range are soft 
and green. All, except the citadel-hill and a portion 
of Skopos which is the southmost peak, are cultivated 
with olive trees and vineyards, or at least are fit for 
cultivation. In the middle of this eastern range stands 
out the hill on which, from prehistoric times down to 
the beginning of the last century, stood the citadel 
of the city. The city itself, the capital of Zakynthos, 



290 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

stands along the narrow shore between this citadel 
and the sea. 

The plain that unites these two ranges of mountains 
is quite low and flat. In winter time I have seen a 
large portion of it flooded by the vehement rains which 
the African and Arabian winds gather from the Medi- 
terranean and pour out in deluges on these islands. 
These floods come so regularly that the part of the 
island chiefly subject to inundation is honored by the 
name of "lake," and is usually not tilled in its entirety, 
as the waters do not dry off early enough for the be- 
ginning of cultivation in spring. 

This central valley has a length of not more than 
eighteen or twenty miles, and in width is from eight 
to ten. Its fertility is most extraordinary. It is 
covered with vineyards of grapes and currants and 
other such luxuriant vegetation of winterless climes. 

The quality and quantity of currents here produced 
have been so well known, especially in England, as to 
give the name to the entire species ; and in trade, when 
small dried raisins are spoken of, they are frequently 
called by the name of "Zante currants," although they 
may be not at all from Zakynthos. The entire plain 
is dotted with white farmhouses and villas of the 
land-owners. The proprietors of these villas are for 
the most part descendants of the old Venetian aristoc- 
racy of the island, and live in the city, except in the 
summer time, when they move out to their cool and 
pretty villas. 

Only by considering the richness of this plain can 
one understand how so small an island can support a 
population of about 45,000 inhabitants, without any 



THE FLOWER OF THE EAST 291 

other considerable source of wealth save that which is 
connected with the produce of this valley. 

On account of the lowness of the plain it is not in 
all respects free from malarial dangers, although seri- 
ous fevers are very rare. The unpleasantness, how- 
ever, of an occasional chill, together with the desire 
to keep away from earthquakes, has caused the farm- 
ers to live chiefly in villages situated on the slopes of 
the western range of mountains. As is easy to under- 
stand, earthquakes are most destructive where the soil 
is soft and liable to become easily unsettled, when 
Poseidon, the god of quakes, bestirs himself. A house 
built upon a rock will outstand a fearful earthquake 
before it falls, while one standing on sand or looser 
earth will be affected by a comparatively light shock. 
This seismic fact the natives of earthquake countries 
very soon learn from bitter experience. And there- 
fore these Zakynthiac farmers build their villages like 
nests on the rocky slopes of the western mountains. 
Some eighteen or more of these beautiful white towns 
can be counted perched among the dark green sides 
of the slopes, and all within easy view from any one 
of the opposite heights of the eastern hills. These 
farmers, however, go down to the valley to live in 
summer time, in roughly built white houses standing 
among the vineyards. 

It is hardly necessary to explain further why these 
farmers prefer to live huddled together into villages, 
instead of dwelling much more comfortably in isolated 
farmhouses, at a distance from each other, as the 
farmers often do in America. Along with the other 
reasons that elsewhere induce men to prefer to live 



292 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

in villages rather than among the fields must be added 
that of personal safety, when it is a question of such 
places as Zakynthos. For in past centuries Zakynthos 
owing to its flourishing condition and its wealth was 
open to continual attacks of sea-robbers, and the farm- 
ers, if they did not live protected by grouping them- 
selves together, would have been always in danger. 

As one comes into Zakynthos from the sea, the city 
opens out before him in the shape of a long half -moon, 
of orange-colored houses, against a background of 
green hills. In the middle rises the bold Venetian 
citadel. It is an enchanting picture. But perhaps even 
more than by this fairy view of the city the eyes are 
caught and held by the stately mountain Skopos which 
stands off to the left, and whose sloping ascents begin 
just beyond the small river south of the modern city, 
which served three thousand years ago as a harbor 
for Phcenikian traders. 

To visit the top of this strange hill not more than 
a good half-day is required, if the tourist is able to 
stand some fatigue. The summit may be reached by 
donkey, with the exception of the last few minutes' 
journey which must be made on foot. 

On the top is a monastery. In Greek countries no 
prominent mountain top remains unconsecrated to 
some saint or to some attribute of the Deity. This top 
of Skopos is sacred to the Panaghia, the Blessed Vir- 
gin, under the special appellation of the "Panaghia 
Skopiotissa." The monastery is located on a small 
plateau almost at the summit of the mountain, at a 
height of about 1,365 feet. Just east of it rises to the 
height of ninety feet, like a colossal tower, a mass of 



THE FLOWER OF THE EAST 293 

gypsum stone which from its shape is called "the 
Tourla," or "the tower," and which from a distance, 
especially from the sea, seems to every stranger to be 
really a colossal watch-tower built by the fabulous 
giants of the past. 

The past history of Zaknythos is so obscure that 
we cannot discover with certainty what name this re- 
markable hill bore in olden days. Its present name 
of "Skopos," which simply means "the Lookout," 
comes from the peculiar shape of the Tourla or tower- 
like column of gypsum on its top. Pliny the Roman 
writer refers to a mount Elatos, or the "Mount of the 
Pines," in Zakynthos, and many think that he meant 
this hill of Skopos. 

The monastery of the Panaghia Skopiotissa has an 
interesting history, if not a very useful one. But 
now the monastery and its surroundings are merely a 
private piece of property. The old cells are deserted, 
and the long-bearded monks of St. Basil chant here no 
more the wonderful "salutations" to the Virgin patron. 
The government long ago took the property unto itself, 
and presented it to a friend, a count Logothetes, who 
now owns it and its tradition. The wonder-working 
Madonna picture now adoms one of the city churches. 
And the beautiful Byzantine chapel on the summit is 
crumbling to ruins. One strange fact which immedi- 
ately is observed by everyone who visits this old church 
is that, side by side, there are located in it a "holy 
table" of the eastern church of Constantinople, and a 
consecrated "altar" of the Latinists of Rome. Here 
under the same dome the two religions which else- 
where employed their heavenly powers in condemning 



294 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

each other, peaceably offered worship to the same God 
side by side, one in the Latin of the western Fathers, 
and the other in the Greek of Chrysostom and Basil. 
This fraternal worship actually used to take place on 
this secluded hilltop, as it did in other parts of the 
Ionian Islands, for ages, while the devotees of the two 
persuasions tore at each other's souls in more civilized 
countries. 

Just above the door of the monastery is a stone on 
which is recorded a mediaeval inscription, which the 
most emlinent of epigraphists, the German acade- 
mician Bceckh, did not hesitate to transcribe into 
his mighty tomes. This inscription reads that "envy 
brings destruction upon itself by its own weapons." 
One might think that it referred to the general 
disposition of the two ancient Christian churches 
to each other, and to the spirit of mutual tolera- 
tion which prevailed betwen the eastern monks here 
who grouped themselves around the Holy Table 
and the western frati who worshiped at the altar. 
But popular tradition has kept a different interpreta- 
tion of the inscription. The tradition states that there 
once existed on the slopes of Skopos two villages, 
between which there arose a feud, which ended in each 
village completely destroying the other. As a matter 
of fact, the inscription is probably a formula for avert- 
ing the fascination of the "Evil Eye." 

A good portion of the mountain is made up of 
gypsum. And high on the sides of the ascent are 
spread here and there glittering white patches of this 
gypsum, inlaid as it were in the other darker stone of 
the mountain. These patches when seen from afar 



THE FLOWER OF THE EAST 295 

seem to be white linen spread out in the sun to dry. 
And popular story has produced a beautiful legend, 
which a sweet singer of Zakynthos, Stephanos Mart- 
zokes, has put into a short poem called "ta aspra pania 
tou Skopou" or "the white linens of the Skopos." 
The story describes how on the vigil of St. John's 
feast a rash woman dared to break the holiness of the 
day by spreading out her fresh-washed linens on the 
rocks. But the saint, with a certain amount of spite, 
angered at her impious disregard for his feast, walked 
about and pointed his finger at the linens, which there- 
upon immediately cleaved to the rocks, and ever since 
have remained stuck to them. Every year, when the 
saint's feast recurs, the unfortunate sinner of a washer- 
woman rises from her grave and pounds all night with 
her washing-paddle, punished like a Tantalos or Sisy- 
phos of old, to atone if possible for her sin; and the 
women of the surrounding country, when they imagine 
that they hear the strokes of the paddle, shudder and 
cross themselves to avert a similar folly from their 
intentions. 

The large plain that lies between the eastern and 
the western hills is, as has been said, filled with alluvial 
soil, washed down from the mountains. How deep 
this soil is has not yet been determined. And how the 
soil beneath the alluvial has been formed is also yet 
undetermined. However, it is clear that the island has 
not come into existence independently of volcanic 
action. Along the coast of Zakynthos can be found 
at all times small pieces of pumice stone evidently 
thrown out from some volcanic opening. But like 
stones are found also along other coasts of Greece, and 



296 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

do not necessarily indicate that active volcanic erup- 
tions are now taking place in any near locality. But, 
however, numbers of such stones found during the 
earthquakes that desolated the island in 1893, and 
observed to be glazed by recent action of fire, make it 
probable that under Zakynthos, or in the sea not far 
from the island, the old god of earthquakes is still 
busy, and keeps his fires hot. 

On the south coast of the island is a semicircular 
bay, which the best geologist of Greece, Metsopoulos, 
basing his opinion on information furnished to him 
by the local scholar and geologist De Biasi, declares 
to be the sunken crater of a volcano, which has not 
yet become extinct. 

Apart from the many and violent earthquakes that 
periodically pay their fiendish visits to Zakynthos, the 
other signs of the presence of volcanic fires beneath 
the surface of the island are the gases that sometimes 
are seen to bubble out of the water in the bay of Keri. 

But the best-known natural phenomenon of Zakyn- 
thos is that of the wells of pitch. These wells are 
likewise thought to be an indication of volcanic activity. 
No stranger visits Zakynthos without driving to these 
curious and historic wells. 

They are historic because Herodotos, writing 
twenty- four hundred years ago, described them, and 
mentioned the uses made of the pitch gathered from 
them. His description is in general as accurate for 
today as it was for the time of Herodotos. He de- 
scribes how the pitch was collected by tying a bunch of 
myrtle branches to the end of a pole, and dipping them 
into the wells. The pitch thus collected was put into 



THE FLOWER OF THE EAST 297 

jars and used for different purposes, among others for 
caulking the seams of ships. 

The wells at present are not more than three feet 
deep. They are filled with fresh water which rises 
from the earth and flows off in streams. There are 
a number of such wells, but only two or three are 
easily approachable, on account of the swampy nature 
of the surrounding land. The water has a strong 
taste of petroleum. The pitch rises out of the earth 
along with the water, and deposits itself in the bottom 
of the wells. The guides dip it out with bunches of 
leaves tied, as Herodotos has described, to the end of 
a short pole. They set fire to it for the benefit of the 
visitor. It seems that at present it is not collected 
except in small quantities and is not an article of com- 
merce. The entire surrounding marshy land is covered 
with the black pitch. 

The history of Zakynthos is a varied and absorbing 
one. Whence came the first inhabitants is difficult to 
say. It is recorded in the old myths that the first colo- 
nists were emigrants from the Peloponnesos of Greece, 
Arkadians, who were afterward succeeded by other 
Peloponnesians, from Achaia. But the only certain 
fact is merely that the original inhabitants were Greeks. 
The island remained independent until the year 91 
before Christ, when it became a Roman possession. 
It is frequently mentioned by ancient writers, but never 
at length. Zakynthos enjoyed a life of tranquillity 
and prosperity under the Romans until the time of 
the invasions of the northern barbarians into the 
Roman kingdom. With the coming of the Vandals 
in 466, began days of trial for the island. From that 



298 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

time its fertility and riches made it a continual prey- 
to all kinds of invaders and robbers. But nevertheless 
it passed through all these dangers and devastations 
and continued to flourish. Under the Venetians who 
possessed it for centuries, it enjoyed comparative tran- 
quillity. 

An incident connected with its history is that dur- 
ing the discussions which preceded the celebrated 
treaty of Campo Formio, by which Napoleon secured 
to France the fruits of his victories in northern Italy, 
he proposed that Zakynthos should become the prop- 
erty of the duke of Modena. Napoleon, when it was 
suggested that some remuneration should be given to 
the duke who was destined to lose his possessions for 
the benefit of Napoleon and France, wrote to the 
Directory, which then administered in Paris the affairs 
of the republic, saying that to remunerate the duke of 
Modena was a difficult affair, unless the island of 
Zakynthos be given to him, and the duke accept. This 
suggestion of Napoleon, however, was not carried out. 
Zakynthos instead of being presented to the Italian 
nobleman, partook of the fate of the other Ionian 
Islands, and became for a short period a French pos- 
session. 

The Venetians have here as in the other islands 
left enduring reminders of their four hundred years of 
domination. To the superficial gaze of the tourist, the 
most striking Venetian remain is the strong and spa- 
cious fort on the hill of the citadel, west of the modern 
city, and connected with the city by old Venetian zig- 
zag ascending streets, paved with cobble-stones. A 
more circuitous modern carriage road also leads up to 



THE FLOWER OF THE EAST 299 

the fort. But the Venetian fort, in its day impregnable, 
is now tumbling to pieces, and in two or three genera- 
tions its mighty walls will be a thing of the past. 
Earthquakes and the rain of centuries have eaten off a 
good corner of the hill, and have begun to undermine 
the walls. The hill is of pliocene clay, and not of stone. 
This destruction by the forces of nature have been so 
strong as to render useless one of the entrance gates to 
the citadel, and accordingly this fine gate was long 
ago walled up. It looked toward the southeast, while 
the present entrance is at the north. The closed gate 
is still recognizable, with the names in Latin of the 
doge of Venice and his representatives in the Orient, 
when the gate was first opened, in 1646. 

Inside the fort there are but few remains of classical 
antiquity. With the exception of two or three pieces 
of sculptured fragments of architecture, one from the 
entablature of a Doric temple, and the other a drum 
from an Ionic or Korinthiac column, there is little 
to show that the civilization of ancient Hellas once 
held sway here. 

I copied a few broken inscriptions that showed 
where rest the bones of the bishops who represented 
the Church of Rome in this island. The Catholics once 
possessed at least two large churches within the walls 
of the citadel. One of them, the cathedral, still can 
be seen in its ruins, and the paintings still can be traced 
on the curved walls of the apse. Just below the gate 
to the citadel is another ancient church, which was rent 
into dangerous ruins by the earthquake of 1893. I 
may have been the first to enter it since the earth- 
quake. There are also ruins of the old Byzantine 



300 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

cathedral, and other churches of the Greek rite. On 
the walls of the Byzantine cathedral near the entrance 
to the sanctuary is still to be read an inscription of a 
citizen of the year 1562, who, as an accompaniment to 
the offering he had placed in the church, wrote his 
gratitude for some favor, in the words "deo et patriae 
omnia debeo." While the grateful thanks of this 
reverent patriot are still witnessed to by the inscrip- 
tion, his own name is not known, since he wrote it 
only in abbreviation. 

Among the Venetian families that lived in the cita- 
del in Venetian times, one of the prominent ones was 
that of the Pozzo di Borgo. This family has rendered 
many services to state and church. Some years ago 
a survivor of the family, a citizen of France, and a 
member of the Chamber of Deputies, sent to Zakyn- 
thos one of the keepers of the public archives of 
Venice^ to find the old graves of the Pozzo di Borgo 
family, and erect a new monument to them. Through 
the archaeological skill of De Biasi, the graves were 
found beneath the ruins of the monastery of Saint 
Francis within the old fort. They were opened, and 
the remains were transferred to the modern Greek 
cemetery, and the new site was marked by a marble 
monument brought from Paris. The monastery of 
St. Francis no longer exists. In the middle of the 
space where once stood the church of the monastery 
flourishes the largest fig-tree of Greece. Its trunk 
measures about eleven feet in circumference. Under 
the shade of this tree the remains of the Pozzo di 
Borgo were found. 

The Venetians, being like all Italians of their day 



THE FLOWER OF THE EAST 301 

admirers of art, brought and propagated that in- 
stinct wherever they went. Of all the islands of the 
Adriatic, Zakynthos possesses most works of modern 
art, especially paintings. A few pictures even older 
than Venetian influence are to be seen here. One of 
these old pictures is regarded as a valuable treasure. 
It is an ikon representing the Panaghia, and bears an 
inscription which however is of disputed authority, 
stating that the ikon was painted in the year 840, by 
a painter named Panisalkos. This antique ikon is 
preserved in the church of the Chrysopege. Accord- 
ing to the custom in the East, it is covered with a sheet 
of gold, so that only the face of the Panaghia, which 
is allowed to remain uncovered, can be seen. 

Another ikon equally curious, if not so ancient, is 
kept in the church of the Phaneromene, in the modern 
town. As its style of art clearly indicates, it was 
painted in Krete. But the remarkable fact is that it 
bears great similarity to the famous miraculous pic- 
ture kept in the church of the Redemptorists in Rome 
and venerated under the name of "the Mother of 
Perpetual Help." This ikon has historical value, for 
it is inscribed with the name of the painter, Em- 
manouel Zannes. Moreover it bears a date, the year 
1 64 1. The church of the Phaneromene, in which 
hangs this ikon, is a fine specimen of later ecclesias- 
tical architecture. It is a church of the eastern rite, 
built in the form of a basilica. The entire ceiling, and 
the upper part of the walls are decorated with mag- 
nificent paintings representing scenes from the Old 
and New Testament. Among these frescoes are the 
twenty-four prophets of the Old Law, painted by 



302 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

Plakotos. Plakotos studied in Venice, and his style 
is Venetian. 

In the church of Saint Dionysios the patron of the 
island there is a painting representing a popular re- 
ligious procession, as it used to take place under the 
Venetians. It is by a celebrated Zakynthian artist 
Doxaras, and shows the peculiar and picturesque 
dresses of the three classes of citizens in Venetian 
times. 

This patron of Zakynthos was, like many of the 
saints, peculiar in his history and fortunes. Although 
canonized in the eastern church he was a Frenchman 
by descent. By birth, however, he was a Zakynthian. 
He was a bishop, but was never at peace with other 
ecclesiastics, and being without a see was buffeted 
about from place to place. He spent many years of his 
episcopal life living as a simple monk, as abbot of the 
Anaphonetria monastery in the mountains of the 
western part of the island. The monastery is now, 
like that of the Skopiotissa, the property of a private 
family. Shortly after his death he was proven to be a 
saint, a fact perhaps not grateful to those who were in- 
imical to him while he lived. For the past two hundred 
years no Zakynthian doubts the sanctity and the power 
of Saint Dionysios. A rascal might easily forswear 
God, but not the patron of Zakynthos. His remains are 
kept in a church sacred to him, in a magnificent casket 
of silver and gold and precious jewels. 

On the occasion of the saint's feast, his body is 
placed for veneration in a conspicuous part of the 
church, and then is carried in grand procession through 
the city. His fame is broader than the bounds of 



THE FLOWER OF THE EAST 303 

Zakynthos. Often pilgrims come from a distance to 
receive some favor from him. Those who care for 
his church do not hesitate to profit from such confi- 
dent faith. They positively are known sometimes to 
tell the worshiper who has come from beyond the seas, 
and who wishes to return home with the next steamer, 
that his visit to the shrine of the saint is untimely, as 
"the saint is out." Then they finally consent, softened 
by gifts given for the honor and glory of the saint, to 
say certain prayers to him, and he then returns to the 
church hastily as a special favor to the pious pilgrim. 
Then the priests open the shrine and show to the 
awed worshiper signs of fresh seaweed on the feet 
of the withered body, thus proving that the saint has 
just returned from a long journey over the water. 

Since the beginning of the last century, Zakynthos 
has been one of the most prolific centers of literary 
activity in Greece. Its poets and scholars and writers 
have held respected rank among their colleagues of 
the East. They, like most of the writers of the Ionians, 
have been generally warm advocates of the popular 
dialects, that is, they believe that writers should always 
imitate the language spoken by the people instead of 
studying literary models. The opinion is a strange 
one, but nevertheless has found defenders even outside 
of Greece, among scholars who are unacquainted with 
the points at issue here. In this dialect-language, how- 
ever, the Zakynthians have produced many a gem of 
literature, just as have those who have written in 
dialect elsewhere. The most reputed of all these 
Zakynthian poets that took the common speech as 
their medium, was Solomos. He was in his prime 



304 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

when the war of the revolution broke out in Greece 
in 1 82 1. Solomos, being a citizen of Zakynthos, was 
then by circumstances an "Englishman," but his soul 
went out in heroic songs to his kinsmen the Greeks 
who had determined to regain the freedom of their 
fathers. His most renowned poem is his "Hymn to 
Liberty," written in Zakynthiac dialect. It is regarded 
as one of the masterpieces of all literary war songs. 
All attempts to translate it into other languages have 
completely failed. An English translation of portions 
of it was made by an educated Zakynthian, Kanales, 
who lived for years in Boston, a friend of Long- 
fellow's. But the song, in his translation, is not fit 
even for an advertisement. During the disturbances 
in Greece in 1897, this song was sung in America at 
various philo-Greek gatherings, in Kanares' or others' 
translations, and surely the effect never was to increase 
the enthusiasm in favor of the unfortunate Greeks. 
The kinship between literary and dialectic language 
is yet unknown. A masterpiece in the one kind can 
never be put into the other. 

But perhaps even more than in Solomos, the 
Zakynthians can take pride in another of their poet 
children, the writer of the "Sepolcri," one of the 
masterpieces of Italian literature. Foscolo, however, 
was a Zakynthian not otherwise than by birth and 
early education. His higher training was received in 
Italy and he died in London. The house where he 
was born is one of the pious relics of the city of 
Zakynthos. But his grave is in Florence of Italy, in 
the great church of Santa Croce, whither his body 
was transferred by the Italians in 1871. 



THE FLOWER OF THE EAST 305 

As has been said, Zakynthos offers but few attrac- 
tions for the antiquarian who chiefly seeks remains of 
ancient monuments. The most interesting matter for 
the amateur in this line is the story about the tomb of 
the great Roman orator Cicero. Cicero is supposed 
to have been beheaded near Rome by order of Antony. 
Accordingly it is to be supposed that the body was 
buried in Italy. But in the year 1544, the Franciscan 
monks, to whom one of the churches of the city, Santa 
Maria delle Grazie, belonged, made excavations in 
order to lay the foundations of a new building for 
their monastery.- In doing so, they found a tomb with 
an inscription commemorating Marcus Tullius Cicero 
and Terentia Antonia. Report of the discovery was 
first made in printed form in the year 1547 by a 
Dominican friar, in a treatise published in Venice. 
Several travelers later saw the tomb, and the ancient 
inscription. Chateaubriand was the last to mention 
it. Then the monument and its inscription disappeared, 
and no one knows what has become of it. It is not 
wrong to suspect that in some way or other the in- 
scription was not genuine. 

Another grave in Zakynthos possesses greater merit 
in veneration from mankind. Its site is unknown 
but it is in Zakynthos. It is that of the celebrated 
anatomist Andrew Vesalius, who for his discoveries 
and devotion to his art began to be suspected of being 
a magician, and was condemned by the Inquisition in 
Spain. Some narrate that he was obliged, to atone 
for his misdeeds, to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. 
Others say that the pilgrimage was one of pure desire 



306 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

and not a penance. But at least, on his way back to 
Europe, the ship which carried him was thrown upon 
the rocks of Zakynthos, and his body was buried 
there. 



KEPHALLENIA 

Strong and strange recollections returned to me as 
our smutty little steamship the "Epeiros" glided into 
the fine bay of Argostolion in the island of Keph- 
allenia. Kephallenia is now in almost daily com- 
munication by sea with Athens and Kerkyra. My 
Capuchin companion and I chose the route by Kerkyra, 
coming, as we were, from Sappho's island of Levkas. 
Kephallenia is distant only about twelve hours from 
Kerkyra, and therefore only about twenty-four hours 
from the nearest port of Europe, Brindisi. 

During my stay of five months in Argostolion the 
only other travelers that manifested themselves were 
one life insurance agent from Triest, one salesman 
representing manufacturing firms of Vienna, a com- 
pany of three geologists from the university of Parma, 
and one American clergyman from Maryland, for 
whose coming I was responsible, and who probably 
has not yet forgiven me. It need not be mentioned 
that this enumeration takes no account of the native 
travel and traffic between this island and other por- 
tions of the kingdom of Greece. The travelers here 
named were those from foreign countries. 

Like the other Ionian Islands, Kephallenia has been 
a portion of the Greek kingdom since 1864. Its 
external history is indeed closely linked throughout 
all the ages with that of the other septinsular com- 
munities. But nevertheless Kephallenia has had a 
peculiar career of its own. 

307 



308 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

The name of the island is extremely old. No one 
can furnish an authentic interpretation of it; but it is 
certainly younger than the name "Kephallenes," by 
which the inhabitants are designated; for "Kephal- 
lenia" simply means the "land of the Kephallenes/' 

It is only of late years that there has appeared a 
hope of discovering the primeval history of the Keph- 
allenes. Hitherto they were known to us only 
through the poems of Homer. Homer's picture of 
life is quite correct for his time. But his references 
to the Kephallenes are in the newest parts of the 
poems, and cannot describe a period earlier than the 
eighth century before Christ. A few years ago there 
were unearthed here tombs belonging to a race of 
men who had flourished and declined ages earlier 
than Homer. The culture which these men created 
and developed is known in archaeology as the civiliza- 
tion of the Mykenaean period. This period began at 
least two thousand years before Christ, and continued 
for about a thousand years. The civilization of the 
Mykenlanders is now known to investigators in many 
of its details. In some respects it is scarcely more 
difficult to describe in general outline the manner of 
life in those remote days than it is to narrate the life 
of our grandfathers. The unearthing of these ancient 
tombs is merely the beginning of archaeological 
research in Kephallenia. Future excavations and dis- 
coveries will reveal to us the extent and quality of this 
oldest phase of civilization in these islands. 

Passing over the successive prehistoric, Mykensean, 
and Homeric ages, we find that Kephallenia enjoyed 
an active and flourishing importance in the times of 



KEPHALLENIA 309 

the historian Thoukydides, in the fifth century before 
Christ. There then existed in Kephallenia four chief 
cities, which this historian designates not by the 
abstract names of the cities themselves, but by the 
ethnic name of the collection of the inhabitants, calling 
them the Palians, the Kranians, the Samians, and the 
Pronians. This fact is so much the more noteworthy 
because in Kephallenia the custom exists even till 
today, of naming the numerous villages from the 
chief group of families, or the clan, that inhabits it. 
In the time of Thoukydides Kephallenia was a free 
island, or rather there existed in it the above-named 
four separate and independent city-states. Of these 
cities nothing now remains visible save their decaying 
walls. One can stumble over jagged rocks and labor 
his way through briar bushes for hours amid these 
ruins without meeting anyone except an occasional 
shepherd or a stray peasant. 

When the Ionian Islands, along with the rest of 
the Hellenic East, fell under Roman sway in the 
second century before Christ, Kephallenia, notwith- 
standing the tenacious bravery of its inhabitants, was 
unable to prove itself an exception. After having 
thus become a Latin possession, the entire island was 
given as a gift to Gaius Antonius, an exiled Roman. 
This rascal, who about the middle of the first century 
before Christ had to leave Rome for the benefit of 
that city, was not only allowed to dwell in Kephal- 
lenia, but also, as a gift from the Roman people, to 
own the island and its revenues and to exploit them 
as he wished. The manner in which he did exploit 
the Kephallenes would possibly have made him infa- 



310 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

mous even if his other public acts were not taken into 
account. But he did not go unpunished. For Strabon, 
the ancient geographer, who has kept for us this bit 
of local story, adds that having obtained a repeal of 
the sentence of banishment against him, Gaius Anto- 
nius went back to Rome, only to be assassinated there 
by the henchmen of a more powerful demagogue. 

After the miserable subjection of the four strong 
and powerful cities which once were so proud that 
they would not recognize even mutual dependence on 
each other, they rapidly crumbled into decay. In the 
vicinity of each one of them there sprang up a new 
town, more insignificant and more graceless than its 
arrogant predecessor, but perhaps just as proud. It is 
not pleasant to believe that the descendants of the 
great-souled Kephallenes of Homer ever became 
reconciled to their fate as subjects. Nevertheless a 
modern Ionian, Postolakkas, who made a collection 
and catalogue of the coins of this part of Greece, had 
in his possession a coin of the once powerful city of 
Krane, whose walls still astonish the archaeologist by 
their massive greatness — a coin of the time of the 
Emperor Augustus, which, instead of the old and 
beautiful head of Zevs that usually was in exergue on 
such coins, bears the portrait of a contemporary Roman 
noble, Gaius Proculeius. But this act of adulation and 
humiliation may not have been voluntary on the part 
of the Kranians. 

Some decades of years later, the island was again 
disposed of by its high owners as a simple gift, as we 
learn from Dion Kassios. This time the humiliation 
may not have been so oppressively cruel, but yet was 



KEPHALLENIA 31 1 

such as could be made only when there was question 
of a land of conquest. The emperor Hadrian pre- 
sented it to his beloved city of Athens. 

For a thousand years after this event, the Kephal- 
lenes lived so insignificantly that this life of theirs is 
not continuously recorded in the pages of history. 
We can only say that from the year 395 down to the 
year 1185, Kephallenia constituted a portion of a 
province of the great and curious mediaeval Roman 
empire of Byzantion. During this time plundering 
barbarians roved over many other parts of the domains 
of the empire, near Kephallenia. In 466, Geiserich 
the Vandal ravaged Zakynthos, which lies south 
within easy sight of Fort Saint George on one of the 
hills of Kephallenia; and in 522, the Ostrogoths plun- 
dered Kerkyra, which also lies so near that sometimes 
it can be seen from the top of ^Enos, Kephallenia's 
loftiest mountain. It is hardly probable that with 
such destruction to the north of it and to the south, 
Kephallenia could have remained unscathed. 

But at all events the island continued to possess a 
certain amount of strength. In the year 810, we find 
it fighting against the naval forces of Venice, which 
at that early age had already become the strongest 
power on the shores of the Adriatic. We cannot 
clearly learn why this struggle took place against the 
Venetians, nor do we know what was the outcome 
of it. 

During these hidden centuries, Kephallenia surely 
did not always enjoy a life of peace. A brief notice 
tells us of an inroad of the Saracen pirates in the year 
867, and another notice records a similar raid in 



312 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

1032. Perhaps even settlements of Saracens were 
attempted on the island. There still exists an antique 
village on the eastern shore called "Sarakenika." 

During all this period we have to accept the sup- 
position that the people often suffered, that they were 
often decimated by raids of various enemies, and that 
frequently new supplies of inhabitants came over from 
the Epeiros and other parts of the mainland of Greece 
to occupy the lands left vacant by those who perished 
or were carried off into captivty by the successive 
bands of raiders. These immigrant inhabitants have 
also left traces in the topographical nomenclature of 
the island as well as in the language. Their history 
will be better known in the future. 

The inroads already mentioned were chiefly from 
the north and east. To these were soon added others 
from the west. The western enemy was not tran- 
sient, but came with the intention of making perma- 
nent conquest. The earliest of these western invaders 
were the Normans. After they had conquered Sicily 
and Southern Italy, Kephallenia did not escape their 
knightly greed. Their great leader, who conquered so 
much for them in Europe and who undertook to win 
for himself the ancient kingdom of Constantine the 
Great, came conquesting into the waters of the 
Ionian. But the only lasting memory of him in 
Kephallenia is the name of the northern promontory 
of the island, near which this ambitious conqueror 
died, Cape Guiscard, or the Cape of the Wizard. 

From the time of Robert Guiscard, Kephallenia 
remained almost continually in the hands of some 
western prince or other. Toward the end of the 



KEPHALLENIA 313 

fifteenth century, however, the Turks obtained and 
held the island for about twenty years. But on 
Christmas day of the year 1500, they withdrew for- 
ever, and the flag of Saint Mark of Venice was floated 
from the heights of the town and castle of Saint 
George. From that day down to 1797, Kephallenia 
belonged to the doges. 

With the coming of the Venetians begins a period 
of abundant matter for the constructing of the later 
history of the island. The Venetians governed their 
possessions in the eastern sea by representatives who 
were obliged at regular intervals to present to the 
Venetian council detailed reports about the condition 
of the subject countries. Besides these reports which 
were forwarded to Venice, and are still preserved 
there, each island had its local archives, and the 
records in these archives have not been entirely 
destroyed. In Kephallenia there is preserved a great 
quantity of such documents, relating to events that 
happened between the year 1500 and the beginning 
of the last century. These valuable documents are 
now piled up in a damp room of the customs house, 
and their historic value has not even been suspected 
by the managers of the Greek government. The 
history of Kephallenia even for this period, although 
better studied than that of the other islands, is yet 
capable of the greatest improvement. 

Under the rule of Venice the island prospered to a 
certain extent. It certainly would have prospered 
more were it not for the continual destructive feuds 
and clan enmities. These feuds took more threatening 
shape from about the middle of the seventeenth cen- 



314 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

tury. From that time they kept the country in tur- 
moil as long as the Venetian dominion lasted. The 
feuds were chiefly family affairs among the more 
powerful clan-leaders. The Venetian government 
never regarded these domestic feuds as serious. They 
rendered the islanders more surely unable to throw 
off her yoke. Only in 1760, when the whole island of 
Kephallenia seemed about to be deluged in a feudal 
war of annihilation, did Venice resort to drastic 
measures, and hanged two of the clan-leaders in front 
of the palace of the doge in Venice. 

Even after the departure of Venetian rule the evil 
continued, under French and Russian government. 
Only when the more resolute and perhaps juster hand 
of England took the guidance of the islands was an 
end put to these feudal wars forever. 

Since 1797 French and Russians and English 
dominated here successively. Of all these masters 
none but the Venetians and English left results hard 
to be effaced, lasting mementos of their domination. 
The Venetians left their stamp on the customs of the 
upper classes of the people, and on the common lan- 
guage. The nobles here as in Kerkyra had almost 
ceased to speak Greek. Italian was the language of 
their conversation and of their reading and writing. 
Reassertion, however, of the influence of the people 
at large has put an end to this degrading betrayal of 
what belongs to the life of the country of one's hearth. 
Not so with the mementos of English domination. 
The English handled the Kephallenians in a way not 
liable to make friends. Although England generally 
sided with the Venetian nobles against the people, 



KEPHALLENIA 315 

until she finally discovered the unprofitable injustice 
of doing so, yet she did not allow the nobles to act 
as they pleased. What made England become a bene- 
factor to the Kephallenians forever was not only the 
destruction of feudal strife, but the material improve- 
ment of the island. Previously but few roads existed. 
England cut the best of roads in every direction. She 
built public establishments, founded a prosperous bank, 
and regulated the police service. 

The road-system which the English protectors built 
on the island is the greatest and most lasting result of 
their domination. What a gigantic piece of labor it 
was to make these roads is apparent only when one 
sees by actual observation that most of the island is 
simply a bunch of rocky heights. The glory of plan- 
ning and making these roads belongs to Sir Charles 
Napier and his engineer Kennedy. Napier was a man 
of humanity as well as of phil-Hellenic sentiments, and 
could not endure to see the peasant class of the island 
oppressed and wronged at every turn by the chieftains 
and their followers. The impassable quality of the wild 
island, through lack of roads connecting the various 
valleys, made it difficult for the government to inter- 
fere with the doings of the chieftains in their fast- 
nesses. One of Napier's designs, when he opened 
roads in every direction, was not only to make an exit 
for the despised peasant to bring his fruit to market 
instead of giving it as a serf's gift to his landlord, but 
also to enable the government to reach the feudal 
chieftains in their strongholds. Besides, the moun- 
tains were full of refugees, who, having committed 
some crime or other, forsook the well-policed villages 



316 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

and lived as banditti among the secure recesses of the 
rocks. 

These refugees were practically above the power of 
the law. Both landlord and peasant found it advan- 
tageous and safer not to molest but rather to assist 
them. Often, however, these refugees were originally 
not real criminals, but men who could not pay their 
taxes and bribes to the petty authorities. Venetian 
rule had tended to destroy all respect for conscien- 
tious law by often punishing severely for technical and 
small offenses as well as for large and heinous crimes. 
This policy had made nearly all of the inhabitants of 
Kephallenia more or less criminal, in a technical 
sense. The idea of being a criminal brought with it 
no indelible shame. Accordingly real crime increased, 
especially crimes of violence. The archives of Venice 
contain a sober report sent to the government in the 
year 1776, in which it is stated that it would be diffi- 
cult to find in the entire island one man who had not 
at least three times been punished in some way or 
other by law. This state of affairs Napier undertook 
to remedy by his roads, and his plan did not fail of 
good result. 

One of the most interesting roads built by Napier 
leads from Argostolion, the capital town of the island, 
to the pine forests on the high slopes of Mount ^Enos. 
Napier built the latter half of this road in order to 
bring the grand forest of pines within the reach of 
use and protection. The pine that grows on this 
mountain is sufficiently different from other varieties 
as to merit in botany a name of its own, being known 
as abies Cephalonica Loud. The forest begins on the 



KEPHALLENIA 317 

mountain slope at the height of about three thousand 
feet, and extends upward to about five thousand three 
hundred feet. As this mountain is the only one in 
the island that possesses large trees, it has from a dis- 
tance a peculiar dark color which contrasts sharply 
with the lighter colors of the limestone island, and 
which occasioned the Venetian name of Monte Nero, 
or Black Mountain, 7Enos is about 5,325 feet high. 
On account of its imposing appearance it was in 
remote antiquity sacred to Zevs. On the top of the 
mountain there was an altar dedicated to this deity. 
Travelers who have ascended to the summit absurdly 
declare that round about where the altar stood are 
still to be seen heaps of bones, remains of the ancient 
sacrifices. 

The view from the top of ^Enos is indescribably 
sweet, and at the same time grand. From the height 
of 5,325 feet, one stands on a mountain top which on 
two sides seems to rise almost out of the water. In 
almost every direction the view is clear as far as the 
eye can carry. There are no sharp contrasts of color 
as seen among the Alps, but each soft shade blends 
imperceptibly into its nearest different hue. Still there 
is a sufficient variety of landscape. Sea and land, 
island and water and sky, valley and crag, green vine- 
hills and diminutive yellow wheat-fields all blend in 
enchanting harmony. Toward the west is the bound- 
less sea which rolls off toward Italy and Africa. 
Toward the south in the blue waters is Zakynthos 
with its green and violet shades. Beyond Zakynthos 
in the misty distance winds the crooked coast of the 
Peloponnesos from the mediaeval fort of Clarence to 



318 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the port of Navarino where the united fleets of 
Europe under the guidance of Admiral Codrington 
destroyed the Turkish fleet in 1827. Toward the east 
one looks right into the quiet waters where in 1571 
the ships of Don Juan won their victory over the hosts 
of the Moslem in the battle of Lepanto. How quiet 
these blue waters now are, freed from Moslem and 
pirate. North of this ancient battle-place appears the 
island of Levkas, with the romantic promontory of 
"Sappho's Leap." Between Levkas and Kephallenia, 
and separated from either by only a narrow strait, is 
the charming island which tradition claims to be 
Homeric Ithaka. Closer are the various shapes and 
colors of the island of Kephallenia itself. From this 
point the beholder feasts eye and soul on beauty of 
color and harmony of outline, and on the history of 
world-shaking events which cover a period of almost 
three thousand years, and which happened in the inno- 
cent regions at his feet. 

Another cherished plan of Napier's was to increase 
the population of the island by introducing colonists 
from abroad. The number of inhabitants had, on 
account of the continual raids of Goth and Vandal and 
conqueror and Turk, never risen to what it ought to 
be for the material prosperity of the island. Only 
after the battle of Lepanto did the number of inhabit- 
ants gradually begin to increase. Napier's plan was 
to introduce workmen, who, understanding how to till 
the mountain country, could find a source of com- 
fortable subsistence in Kephallenia. He had observed 
the industry of the peasants of Malta, and the skill 
with which they tilled their hills. Accordingly he 



KEPHALLENIA 319 

asked the English government to facilitate the immi- 
gration of three hundred Maltese peasants to Kephal- 
lenia. The English government, instead of complying 
with his request, sent him three hundred stubborn 
criminals from the prisons of Malta. Napier did not 
despair of the success of the enterprise, although he 
complained bitterly of this action of his government. 
He planted his colony at the east foot of JEnos, near 
where the ancient city of the Pronians had prospered. 
But Napier was called away from his beloved Kephal- 
lenia, and was succeeded by others not so deeply earn- 
est in sympathy with the progress of the country. 
After a few years the Maltese colonists had all for- 
saken their new homes, most of them being, by pre- 
vious life, worthless fellows. They abandoned their 
gardens and turned to begging as soon as Napier's 
tutelage was withdrawn. The huts of New Malta, 
now tumbling down, with not a single inhabitant, lie 
near the ruins of its proud predecessor the Pronian 
city. The visitor to the one set of ruins sees also the 
other. The region is entirely deserted. Malarial 
fevers often attack the peasants who descend into the 
valley of New Malta to cultivate its fertile fields. 
Indeed this prevalence of fever in the Pronian district 
was one of the reasons that influenced the Maltese 
colonists to prefer the profession of pauperism to that 
of agriculturists. 

On this island of Kephallenia, wherever the country 
is not perfectly open to the breezes from the sea, the 
climate is malarious, and causes what may be called 
"mountain fever." High and perfectly dry regions, 
simply from the fact that the surrounding mountain 



320 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

tops exclude the breezes that would continually 
replenish the atmosphere with new air, are compara- 
tively unhealthy localities. This is the much more 
noteworthy because such other parts of the island as 
are blessed by being sufficiently open to the winds 
from the sea are among the most healthy parts of 
Greece, which is to assert very much. Argostolion is 
regarded as one of the best winter places in the Medi- 
terranean for persons of weak lungs. 

Near the town of Argostolion, an Englishman 
named Stevens, strolling along the bay one evening 
some seventy years ago, discovered that water from 
the sea was flowing in large quantities into crevices 
among the rocks along the shore, and that the crevices 
did not seem to be filling with the water that kept con- 
tinually running in. He later examined the phenome- 
non more carefully, and becoming convinced that the 
quantity of water incessantly running landward from 
the sea seemed sufficient to be made use of as a motive 
power, he caused a channel to be cut for the collect- 
ing of the water, and erected a flour mill. The stream 
of water from the sea actually proved to be strong 
enough to supply power for the mill. Shortly after- 
ward a second mill was built. Both are still in opera- 
tion. Accordingly we have here the phenomenon of 
streams of water flowing, not as is common, from the 
land into the sea, but from the sea into the land. 
After running the distance of about fifty yards, turn- 
ing the mill-wheels on its way, the water suddenly 
disappears in the crevices of the rocks. Where it goes 
to has not yet been discovered. Five hundred thou- 
sand gallons daily flow through these channels. Num- 



KEPHALLENIA 32 1 

bers of physicists have studied the phenomenon, and 
no explanation has as yet met with general acceptance. 
Were it not for the scarcity of water the island 
would be wonderfully fertile. Running water is 
almost unknown. Springs are very rare in the 
mountain regions. The shepherds have to draw water 
for their flocks from deep artificial wells. And the 
flocks of Kephallenia are in respect to drinking reputed 
to be exceptionally abstemious. Aristotle, in his book 
on Wonderful Facts, states a belief that goats in 
Kephallenia do not need water, but that every day 
they turn their heads to the sea and with open mouths 
imbibe the moist winds. ^Elianos, another ancient 
writer, asserts that the goats of Kephallenia pass six 
months every year without drinking. The Latin 
author Valerius Maximus adds his testimony saying 
that for the greater part of the year goats need no 
water here : 

In Cephalonia insula, cum omnia ubique pecora haustu 
aquae quotidie recreentur, in ea pecudes majore ex parte anni 
ore aperto ex alto ventos recipientes sitim suam sedare. 

The Kephallenian wines are of a superior quality. 
A noted variety of muscatel is produced in limited 
quantities. In the flourishing days of the Republic 
of Venice, every aristocrat of that city considered it 
as de rigeur to have a decanter of Kephallenian mus- 
catel on his table. 

Two enterprising natives of the island, the brothers 
Toul, have established an immense vinario, and have 
begun to send these fine wines to Europe, finding a 
market for them chiefly in Germany. The Toul broth- 



322 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

ers are Greeks, in so far as men can be said to be 
Greeks, who are descended straight from the O'Tooles. 

In connection with the ancestral nationality of the 
founders of this vinario, it occurs to me to mention 
another case, showing the cosmopolitan character of 
the children of Erin. On this occasion of my visit 
to Kephallenia, the director of the schools of inter- 
mediate instruction, wishing to demonstrate to me the 
excellence of the education provided for girls in the 
town of Argostolion, brought me to an academy for 
young ladies. The lesson happened to be that of 
ancient Greek. The maidens read their Lysias with 
the ease of a story-book, and explained the text with 
the solemnity of a Scotch professor of Scripture. 
Their intelligence so impressed me that I inquired into 
the history of the school. Imagine my surprise, if 
not also my pride, when I heard that this nursery of 
the newer Hellenism where the daughters of the 
ancient clans are trained in the language of Sappho 
and Korinna, had been founded by a Miss Murphy. 
Although quite old at the time of my visit, she yet 
continued to direct the school as a kind of president 
of honor. A visit to her and her sister at their home 
showed again the adaptability and ubiquity of the 
children of Ireland. For I learned that Miss Mur- 
phy's sister had married an old Greek chieftain's son, 
and that their boy was at that time serving under the 
"stars and stripes" with Dewey, as volunteer in the 
American fleet at Manila. 

Before closing, it is proper to add a few words 
about the principal town of the island, Argostolion. 
It is comparatively a new city. Its official existence 



KEPHALLENIA 323 

dates from the year 1757. Its harbor is one of the 
best and safest in the Mediterranean. Near this 
fine harbor there always has been a city, as far back 
as history reaches. For, distant by walk of an hour 
and a half from Argostolion is the ruined city and 
castle of St. George, now inhabited chiefly by a colony 
of shoemakers, who live among the crumbling ruins of 
what was three hundred years ago one of the richest 
and proudest cities of all the Venetian possessions. St. 
George was first built when the town of Krane, which 
lay nearer to the harbor, was destroyed. Now it is 
a sign of the vanity of the past. True, the view from 
its crumbling citadel is as glorious as ever. But, save 
the glory of surrounding nature, nothing remains 
except ruins and oppressive memories. Once there 
shone here the glorious pomp of the Church of Rome, 
which through the Capuchins took care of the western 
Christians in the island. To such an extent was the 
order of St. Francis here revered, that the shield of 
the order became the coat of arms of Kephallenia. 
Now, however, the beautiful churches, cracked and 
broken by earthquake, and rotting by neglect, are fall- 
ing down arch by arch. All the noble Italians that 
once added the glitter of their presence to the mag- 
nificent displays in gorgeous processions and other 
festive religious ceremonies of Latin ritual, have 
made an easy transit to the Greek from the Roman 
form of worship. 

The inscriptions that adorned the gateways and 
walls, consecrating the glories of days that are gone, 
are growing unreadable before anyone has copied 
them for historians of the future. Not without dis- 



324 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

gust did I recollect that while three fat Capuchins still 
occupy their ancestral house in Argostolion and in a 
routine way care for the half-dozen Maltese families 
that live round them, I should see the old castle strewn 
with records and reminders of the former power and 
influence of their great order here. Especially did 
this thought haunt me, as I sat copying some inscrip- 
tions while a son of a cobbler took up the fragment 
of an inscribed stone and with it broke walnuts on 
another engraved stone now lying in the dust, but 
which once had stood over the altar of St. Francis, 
and commemorated privileges granted to the Capuchin 
friars of the castle by Pope Benedict the Fourteenth. 



THE MANIATS 

The southern extremity of Greece is a wild and 
rugged land. It consists of an almost naked ridge of 
rock which extends out into the azure sea, a towering 
promontory. Its inhabitants partake of the nature of 
their cliffs. They are fierce and rugged and unchange- 
able. The whole land is simply the up-bluffed end of 
a mountain range. The villages are either perched 
ahigh like eagles' eyries on the stony slopes or are 
nestled along the coast near convenient harbors. Both 
slopes of the mountain are possessed by the same 
people. This is the Taygetos mountain range, the 
loftiest of the Peloponnesos, unless Kyllene's peak be 
higher. "Five-Fingers" was the name of the range 
in the Byzantine Ages. The highest "finger" is seen 
best when looking toward the west from Sparta. Its 
tip is 7,900 feet higher than the harbor-waters of the 
coast-towns. 

The extreme end of Taygetos forms the promon- 
tory of Tsenaron. Mediaeval sailors feared it for its 
stormy seas and its numerous pirates. They called 
it Matapan. Taenaron is of all Europe the point near- 
est to the equator. In antiquity it was sacred to Posei- 
don, the master-deity of the sea. A noble temple 
which was very holy was dedicated to him there. No 
refugee, even a slave, who succeeded in escaping into 
this shrine could be dragged off to punishment. Here 
every runaway had safe asylum. Here, near to the 
temple was a fissure in the rocks which led down to 

325 



326 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the abode of Plouton and the nether world. Through 
this entrance did Herakles go down to Hades and 
through this exit did he drag up the three-headed 
watch-dog of the kingdom of the dead. 

By nature this country of Mane is divided into 
three parts. One part is the region round Cape 
Tsenaron, and the other parts are the eastern and 
western slopes of Taygetos. The region around 
Taenaron is the wildest of all. But a description of it 
cannot be greatly untrue for the other two parts. In 
most provinces of the Peloponnesos the stranger who 
asks regarding the number of inhabitants dwelling in 
a town is in answer informed of how many political 
votes the town possesses. In Mane, this question used 
to be answered by stating the number of guns in town. 
This shows the character of the inhabitants. No man 
went about unarmed. Even boys from nine years and 
upward carried pistols in their belts. This southern 
region is most barren and arid. Water is scarce. 
There are very few springs and no running brooks. 
Water is collected in the rainy season in immense cis- 
terns. These are kept locked, and the owners permit 
water to be drawn therefrom only on receipt of pay- 
ment. Vegetation is scanty and short-lived. There 
are no forests in the southern part. Fuel for fire is 
not to be had save in most limited quantities. Accord- 
ingly the natives make bread and bake it only twice 
or thrice in a year, heating the ovens therefor with 
the planks of some decayed canoe or the knotty wood 
of some dead olive tree. This bread, dried of all 
moisture, is kept stored away. Before being eaten it 
is softened by being soaked in water. 



THE MANIATS 327 

In Mane there are no farms of great extent. But 
wherever the rocks allow it, wherever the smallest 
quantity of soil can be kept together, the industry of 
the Maniats is apparent. They build terraces of stone 
to keep the thin earth from being washed away by 
the rains, and plant it with lupines, the chief food of 
the Maniat mountaineers. The other most valuable 
products are oil, olives, honey, and acorns. Vineyards 
scarcely exist, and wine is in many villages an almost 
unknown luxury. At certain seasons of the year 
quails abound here. When migrating to the warmer 
climes of Africa or Krete, this is their last resting 
place on the European continent. They are caught 
in countless numbers round port "Quaglio," and 
packed and sent not only to other parts of Greece but 
to Italy and northern Europe. 

This region came to be known as Mane in the 
Middle Ages. The earliest appearance of the name, 
so far as can be ascertained, is in the writings of the 
emperor Konstantin Porphyrogennetos, who speaks 
of a castle called Maina, in this region. Ruins of 
Maina castle still can be seen. The origin of the 
Maniats is a puzzle. It has been stated that they are 
descendants of the ancient Lakons. In the high days 
of ancient Greece all this country was under the 
government of Sparta. But not all the inhabitants pos- 
sessed the right of being citizens of the Spartan com- 
monwealth. Those who were not slaves, but yet were 
not citizens lived in the smaller towns of the Spartan 
territory. These were the Lakons. But after Greece 
had bcome a Roman possession, then the Roman 
emperors gave autonomy to the Lakons, and dealt 



328 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

with them directly, without the intermediation of 
Sparta. They thus came to be called "the Free 
Lakons." And as the Free Lakons dwelt chiefly in 
the regions which the Maniats now possess, it has 
been supposed not gratuitously that the Maniats are 
the offspring of the ancient Free Lakons. Occupying 
a country that has no attractions for immigrants, and 
being isolated from the other Peloponnesians, the 
natives here probably have kept a good deal of pure 
Greek blood, be it Lakonic or not. There are never- 
theless among them some traces of Slavic and Albanian 
mixture. 

Their tenacity of paganism was remarkable. In 
the latter half of the ninth century they still worshiped 
the old gods according to the old rites. Probably not 
often had missionaries ascended to these eyries. Por- 
phyrogennetos speaks of them as heathens. But in 
the tenth century the holy Nikon, whom the eastern 
division of the church commemorates as "the apostle 
of Lakonia," succeeded in inducing them to change 
their Hellenic rituals for that of Byzantion. The 
Maniats still point out the cell where the hermit used 
to dwell and the church where he used to perform the 
liturgy. The mountain top where these shrines exist 
is called by his name. It is a mighty honor to have a 
mountain for a monument. 

But it is not the same to be ritually Christianized 
as it is to be civilized in harmony with the tenets of 
the gospel. These are not interchangeable terms. 
The Maniats adopted the ritual of the Christians, but 
not so thoroughly the evangel of the Nazarene teacher. 

As long as Greece constituted a part of the pos- 



THE MANIATS 329 

sessions of Byzantion, the Maniats were scarcely men- 
tioned in the records of Byzantine chronography. 
But when from the thirteenth century Greece became 
a prize first of western crusaders and their successors, 
and afterward of Turkish conquerors, the Maniats 
repeatedly, if not almost continually, made their 
would-be oppressors understand that the Maniats 
could not learn how to submit to any will save their 
own. William Villeharduin, however, with his 
Frankish knights, was able to bend them into external 
submission. He built two forts, one at Maina east of 
Taygetos and the other at Levktron on the west side, 
so as to hold the mountaineers in compulsory subjec- 
tion. But the Franks were not oppressive masters. 

When the Byzantine empire finally succumbed 
before the Moslems in the year 1453, the region of 
Mane was under the nominal control of the Venetian 
republic. But twenty-six years later the republic con- 
cluded a disadvantageous peace with the Moslems, 
yielding up to them many of the countries that she 
had long been master of. Mane was handed over to 
Turkish authority. But the Maniat hero Korkodil 
Kladas raised the standard of rebellion against the new 
despots. He objected to Moslem control, and seeing 
that the Venetians could not protect him, or would 
not, he tried to enlist the interest of Ferdinand the king 
of Naples. At first his success was encouraging. He 
drove the Moslem soldiers from the slopes of the Tay- 
getos, and compelled them to evacuate twenty-nine 
castles. But finally his resources failed him, and he 
was obliged to flee to Naples, after seeing his country- 
men bend to the Turkish yoke, at least nominally. 



330 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

Korkodil's insurrection was the first serious and 
spirited one which the Maniats as such ever made 
against their conquerors. But from this noble attempt 
down to the day when the irresistible Ibrahim with his 
army of Arabs found it impossible to invade the stern 
country of the Maniats, Mane was the almost impreg- 
nable home of a wild and brigand-like freedom where 
tyrants' messengers seldom dared to approach, and 
where every spark of dissent against authority was 
liable to burst out into a flame of merciless insurrec- 
tion. 

In the year 1612. a European adventurer. Charles 
the duke of Xevers. in whose veins there flowed some 
of the blood of the imperial Palaeologs of Constanti- 
nople, began to agitate a plan by which he hoped to 
restore the throne of Christian Byzantion and estab- 
lish himself as emperor. The Maniats.. hearing of his 
projects, immediately adopted his ideas, and sent a 
messenger to him in Rome. They requested him to 
come at once and assume lordship over the Pelopon- 
nesos. But Charles of Xevers was not destined to be 
as great as were his aspirations, and his plans came 
to naught. Two years later the capudan-pasha paid 
a grievous visit to Mane, and placed strong garrisons 
in the forts, and made regulations for the payment of 
the tribute which the Porte desired to collect. 

The Maniats were again honorably mentioned in 
1645. I n tnat }' ear tne Turks with a mighty army 
and fleet besieged the city of Kanea in Krete. The 
Venetians who held Kanea defended it bravely and 
sent death to 30.000 of the assailants. Xo one came 
to their assistance. The Maniats. however, hearing of 



THE MANIATS 331 

the siege, wished to go to the succor of the besieged 
Christians, but could not procure ships to bring them 
to Krete in time. This willingness of the Maniats to 
fight against the armies of the Porte occasioned a new 
visitation of the capudan-pasha, who this time took 
measures to impose the haratch or annual poll tax 
which all other rajas were supposed to pay in order to 
have the privilege of wearing their heads for the ensu- 
ing year. It is doubtful, however, whether the 
haratch was ever actually collected in Mane or not. 

In the year 1685, the Maniats joined the gallant 
and eminent Morosini, who freed them from Turkish 
thraldom for a while, and placed them under his 
country's protection. From this time on, the Maniats 
made rapid progress in their spirit of independence 
and in ethnic pride. In 17 15, however, they again 
came under the dominion of the Moslems. 

Their next eventful insurrection happened in the 
year 1770. Catharine the Second of Russia, in order 
to further her own designs, used to flatter and patron- 
ize the Greeks. Being about to begin a war against 
Turkey she, by means of secret agents, fomented 
among the Greeks a new rebellion, promising them 
all kinds of assistance. The Greeks were so much the 
more easily ensnared because they regarded the Rus- 
sians as defenders of the eastern church. In this insur- 
rection the Maniats took a leading part. But after a 
short time Catharine made peace with the Porte, with- 
out stipulating for the welfare of the Greeks whom 
she had incited to danger. The Porte filled the Pelo- 
ponnesos with savage Albanian hordes of soldiery, 
who spread destruction and robbery and death in 



332 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

every hamlet and village and town. Fortunately 
Mane did not suiter so severely. But nevertheless the 
Maniats had again to recognize Turkish rule. 

In this insurrection of 1770 there prominently 
appeared the name of a family which ever since has 
acted an important role in the history of Mane. This 
is the Mavromichal family. To the rolls of honor it 
has furnished names which the Hellenic race will 
never forget. The best men of this house fell in 
battle in different wars for their fatherland. In the 
insurrection of 1770, the chief leader of the Maniats 
was Skylo Yannis Mavromichal. His mother was 
not a Greek, it seems, and came into the country of 
the Maniats in some mysterious way, Maniat song 
and story regarded her as a supernatural being, and 
have called her the "nereid" or "fairy." Skylo 
Yannis, the fairy's son, and twenty-four followers, 
shut themselves up in a tower and for two days 
defended themselves against a Turkish army of five 
thousand. The Russians who were not far away took 
advantage of the bravery of Skylo Yannis and used 
it as a convenient opportunity of escaping to their 
ships. Skylo Yannis and his followers all perished. 

At times an uncontrolled love for liberty may lead 
to disastrous consequences. It led two noble members 
of the house of the Mavromichals to the act of assassi- 
nating Count Kapodistrias, the president of regener- 
ated Greece, in 1828. It is probable, however, that 
personal motives were as strong in causing this crime 
as was the love of freedom. Kapodistrias had hum- 
bled the Mavromichal family in various ways. The 
result was that on a Sunday in October, as Kapodis- 



THE MANIATS 333 

trias was about to enter the church of Saint Spyridon 
in Navplion, he was met at the door by Georgios and 
Konstantin Mavromichal, and was shot to death. 

After the suppression of the insurrection of 1770, 
the Porte adopted a more efficacious plan for keeping 
the Maniats quiet. One of the eight higher chieftains 
of the land was honored by Turkey with the special 
title of "bey," and was appointed to be highest local 
governor of the country, with the duty of collecting 
the taxes, suppressing piracy, and keeping order. In 
this way the Maniats became more or less actual sub- 
jects of the sultan. Their bondage, however, was never 
severe like that of other rajahs. They never were re- 
quired to submit to the "psedomazoma," or contribution 
of young boys who were to be trained as Moslems and 
janizzaries. The taxes which they were obliged to 
pay were very slight. And the manner in which they 
paid them is incredibly proud. The collector came 
only to the boundary of Mane. He did not enter 
Maniatic territory. A purse containing the tribute 
money was stuck on the end of a saber and thrust 
across the boundary-line to the humble collector. 

When Napoleon was at the beginning of his great 
career, he received at Milan a letter from the bey of 
Mane, inviting him to come into the Peloponnesos. 
The idea pleased Napoleon, and he sent the brothers 
Stephanopoli as envoys into Mane to study the country 
for him. But shortly afterward, circumstances per- 
suaded Napoleon to prefer to go to Egypt, and thus the 
dream which he had of restoring the throne of the 
successors of Constantine the Great and occupying it 



334 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

himself, never went farther than this preliminary 
exchange of preparatory ideas. 

It may not be entirely inappropriate here to men- 
tion that an unfounded assertion has often declared 
that Napoleon was himself a Maniat by descent The 
story is based on the fact that in the year 1673 a 
number of Maniat families belonging to the clan of 
t^e Stephanopoli family left their homes and emi- 
grated westward, finally settling in Corsica. Their 
descendants still exist in that wild island. From these 
Maniat exiles have certain romancing flatterers tried 
to derive the family of the Bonapartes. In the year 
1767, a second colony departed from Mane to escape 
oppression. They went to Florida in America. It 
would be interesting to know their later fate. 

When the great insurrection of 1821, which 
brought freedom to Greece, was about to burst out, 
the Maniats again were with the foremost. As soon 
as the war began, the Maniats assembled and attacked 
and captured the Messenian town of Kalamata. Then, 
on the fifth of April, 182 1, this rude army of five 
thousand wild warriors gathered on the shore of the 
Nedon creek near Kalamata, and with greatest splen- 
dor and pomp, such as is possible only in the eastern 
church, they sang a liturgical doxology, in which 
twenty-five priests officiated. It was the first free 
outburst of the joy of returning liberty. About the 
same time Petrombey Mavromichal, the Maniat leader, 
issued a proclamation to Europe, justifying the insur- 
rection and asking for sympathy and support. 

Mane is one of those corners of the earth expressly 
made for such as wish to resist the rule of tyranny, 



THE MANIATS 335 

and to enjoy rude liberty. The Maniat cannot under- 
stand how an extensive and expanded and multitudi- 
nous nation can enjoy freedom and yet be subject to 
one powerful central government. He is not capable 
of contentedly living a fellow-subject with other 
Greeks, all under one head. "Mane for the Maniats," 
is what he can understand. His idea of liberty goes 
no farther. Perhaps this is the true idea of liberty. 
But today it is not the prevailing and permitted one. 
The old Maniats recognized willingly no authority 
save that of their clan-chief and the head of their 
church, the patriarch of Constantinople. 

The Maniats were not only continually at war with 
their common oppressors, but were also continually at 
war with each other, clan against clan, or often family 
against family. Feuds began which lasted for gener- 
ations. Only in Corsica and in Montenegro have the 
feuds been so ferocious as here, and so unquenchable. 
Each prominent family lived in a tower which was 
capable of withstanding a protracted siege. In the 
year 1834, eight hundred of these towers still were 
erect and occupied. The men often remained shut 
up within these towers for not only months but even 
years. Fortunately the law of the vendetta affected 
only the men. The women might go about freely, 
and it often happened that the women of opposite 
clans who were at war of vendetta against each other, 
might go out unmolested and meet the wives and 
daughters of their enemies, while buying powder and 
provisions for their besieged or besieging lords. 

During the ages in which they were subject to 
Turkey, the Maniats were noted as pirates, and 



336 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

dreaded as such. The corsairs from these towns were 
almost as much to be feared as were those of Algiers. 
Living in a country that did not produce enough to 
keep them alive, and by experience of long ages taught 
to think that the world and its goods belong to those 
who can capture them, they naturally acquired a love 
for the wild manner of support that comes from 
brigandage and piracy. Their three worst character- 
istics therefore were their love for piracy, their 
readiness to commit acts of brigandage, and their 
tenaciousness for the law of the vendetta. 

But they had virtues. And their virtues were 
remarkable. They not only worshiped the spirit of 
liberty, as we have seen, but were and are wonderfully 
brave, manly, frugal, abstemious, and are always true 
to their beautiful women. Such are the Maniats. 



MESOLONGHION 

The pilgrim who sees Mesolonghion is amazed. He 
has read about the heroic behavior of its inhabitants 
when they sustained two fearful sieges. He has seen 
perhaps other cities that have gloriously suffered long- 
protracted beleaguerments, and he vividly can repicture 
in his memory the steep and rocky acclivities that aided 
in keeping the assailants at bay, the massive and lofty 
crenellated walls that seemed proudly to defy all rash 
and daring approach of hostile power, the impassable 
moats, the impregnable bastions, the hidden guns. 
But no frowning barriers, whether of nature or of 
art, ever girdled the town of the stubbornly brave 
Mesolonghians. It lies on the level sand and alluvial 
earth that stretches from the mouth of the Evenos to 
the mouth of the Acheloos. Its niveau is only two or 
three feet above the surface of the sea. The azure 
waters of the Korinthiac Gulf which lap its southern 
side are the only defensive advantages which nature 
has given. These waters are too shallow for the 
approach of any kind of vessel of war. At the time 
when Mesolonghion withstood its two famous sieges 
military genius had not contributed seriously to the 
strengthening of the place. What used to be haughtily 
said of the olden Spartans can be adapted and repeated 
in regard to the Mesolonghians. Their unflinching 
bravery, strong arms, and well-managed weapons were 
the fortifications of their city. 

At the beginning of the insurrection against the 

337 



338 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

Porte, Mesolonghion gave shelter and support to 
about five thousand inhabitants. By converting a good 
portion of the shallow lagoons into vivaria, the town 
had become one of the best fish-marts of Greece. And 
by flooding with sea water the neighboring smooth 
fields that were a few inches lower than the sea-level 
they used to collect the salt that remained after the 
evaporation of the waters. From fish and salt as well 
as from their pasture lands and arable fields they lived 
in comparative affluence. A feeling of independence 
was developed among them. Panaghiotes Palamas 
had founded a school there and the young fishermen 
and shepherds began to learn something of the liter- 
ature of their forefathers. This school, some years be- 
fore the insurrection, had been improved and honored 
by the higher title of "academy." In the year 1770, 
when the Tsarina's emissaries endeavored to create 
a diversion against Turkey by occasioning a revolt 
in Greece, Mesolonghian patriots were among those 
who fell into the Russian trap. And when a false 
report announced that Orlofr" had captured the Turkish 
fort of Modon in the Peloponnesos they raised the 
standard of revolt and drove away all the Turks that 
were dwelling within their town. But Russian help 
never came to them. A fleet of Moslem corsairs 
sailed down from Dulcigno, captured and plundered 
Mesolonghion, and re-established Turkish domination. 
The town quickly recovered, however, and was im- 
portant in the days of Ali Pasha, who built a strong 
fort on the island of Basiladi out in the lagoons, so 
as to be able to control the town. 

In the year 1821, this prosperous town was in- 



MESOLONGHION 339 

habited chiefly by Christians. A number of Greek 
ships from the island of Spetzia sailed into these 
waters to assist the insurgents of Patras, a town which 
lies opposite Mesolonghion on the south side of the 
gulf. When the few Moslem families of Mesolonghion 
saw these ships they were so much taken by fright 
that immediately they all abandoned their homes and " 
fled to the fortified town of Brachori, where the num- 
ber of their coreligionists was greater. Immediately 
after the flight of the Moslems the Christians assembled 
and formally proclaimed that they approved of the 
revolution. This took place in the early part of June. 
The Mesolonghians immediately prepared for active 
participation. They summoned Makres, the klephtic 
chieftain, to come down from the Zygos mountains 
and assist them with his palikars. About two months 
later Prince Mavrokordatos left the Greek army which 
was besieging Tripolis, and came here to take charge 
of the war in western Greece. A senate was estab- 
lished in Mesolonghion which was to direct the affairs 
of all this part of the country. 

Mesolonghion soon attracted the attention of the 
Moslem leaders. AH Pasha had been defeated by his 
own countrymen, and in February of 1822 was assas- 
sinated. The Greeks and phil-Hellenes that had been 
trying to withstand the Moslems in the country between 
Mesolonghion and Ioanina had been shot down at Peta 
in July. High and defiant Souli had surrendered in 
September, and its inhabitants had bidden adieu to 
their native land. Mesolonghion was the next place to 
be humbled and annihilated. The Moslem general, 
Omer Vrioni, at the head of 11,000 soldiers and ac- 



340 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

companied by Reshid Pasha, marched down through 
Akarnania and encamped outside of Mesolonghion. 
On November 6 the siege commenced. The town 
was protected partly by the lagoons which did not 
allow the approach of large vessels. On the land 
side, however, it was but indifferently fortified. The 
town lies on a low sandy strand jutting out into the 
shallow water. Running across the neck of this out- 
jutting promontory was a low mud wall which fenced 
the town off from the fields on the land side. The 
mud wall was flanked on the outer side by a shallow 
moat about 16 feet wide. The assailants thought that 
the storming of the place would be an easy task. The 
chief leaders of the besieged Mesolonghians were 
Prince Mavrokordatos and Marko Botsares. Mavro- 
kordatos' friends had urged him to abandon the Meso- 
longhians. His English acquaintances had suggested 
that he take refuge in Zakynthos. But Mavrokordatos 
said that he would stay in Mesolonghion, either to 
drive the assailants back or else to die there as he 
should. His heroism had its effect on a population 
itself heroic. The garrison consisted of about 600 
soldiers, among whom were a few phil-Hellenes. 

Before making serious attempts against the town, 
Omer offered favorable terms if they would capitulate. 
In order to gain time the Mesolonghians postponed 
their definite answer. But on November 20 seven 
ships came to their assistance, bringing what they 
most needed, ammunition. Also a detachment of 
several hundred Peloponnesians landed to aid them. 
The Mesolonghians broke off all peace negotiations 
and informed Omer that if he desired to have Meso- 



MESOLONGHION 341 

longhion "he would have to come and take it." Omer 
immediately began preparations to do so. 

Finally Omer planned a formidable and general 
attack for Christmas morning. This he did because he 
supposed that the Mesolonghians would all be in their 
churches, and the wall would be deserted. But a 
huntsman from a neighboring district, who used to 
supply Omer with game and fish, contrived to forewarn 
the besieged. In vengeance for this act the huntsman's 
wife and children were slaughtered. The Greek priests 
had imparted to all the soldiers a dispensation from 
being present at mass on that Christmas morning. 
Shortly before daybreak, when all were supposed to 
be in the churches, the storming assailants stealthily 
approached. One division intended to scale the east 
wall and the other by wading through the lagoon 
expected to enter the town from the south. The hidden 
Mesolonghians made no sign of life until the assailants 
were within pistol shot. Then they opened a terrible 
volley. The surprisers were surprised. For three 
hours the skirmish lasted. The loss of the Turks was 
not made known, but the number is said to have been 
several hundred. Only four Greeks were killed. Omer 
despaired of being able to take the brave lagoon town. 
And fearing lest Odyssevs or some other klephtic 
leader might attack him from without, he decided to 
retreat hurriedly. He abandoned some of his cannon 
and baggage in his terrified haste. Mesolonghion was 
free to breathe for awhile. 

The second and more glorious siege began in 1825. 
But in the interval Mesolonghion continued to be an 
important center for the patriots. In January of 1824 



342 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the brave citizens received into their midst the most 
enthusiastic of their friends, Lord Byron. He im- 
mediately began to improve the condition of the town. 
He tried to persuade them to adopt European methods 
of regularity and obedience in the army. He expended 
money in paying discontented soldiers. He encouraged 
everybody. But these straining exertions and the un- 
healthfulness of the locality were too severe for his 
already shattered health. On Easter Sunday in April 
of the same year he died among his Hellenic friends, 
in the house of Trikoupes, the historian. 

In 1825, the sultan decided that Mesolonghion 
should no longer be allowed to remain unmolested. He 
commanded Reshid Pasha to march against it, inti- 
mating that Reshid would loose his head if he failed 
to take Mesolonghion. In April of 1825 Reshid 
arrived in the plain at the foot of Zygos mountain 
east of Mesolonghion. The size of his army is not 
known. His commissariat distributed 25,000 rations, 
but it is probable that his fighting men did not much 
exceed 10,000. The Mesolonghians had 4,000 defend- 
ers. The earthen rampart across the promontory still 
existed, and was in better condition than during the 
first siege. It was partly faced with masonry. It was 
protected by a number of various kinds of batteries 
which bore the names of celebrated defenders or ad- 
vocates of human liberty. The besieged had forty- 
eight guns and four mortars. The muddy ditch still 
existed. 

Reshid demanded that the Mesolonghians surrender 
to him the keys of the city and retire with honor. 
They answered that they had hung the keys of the 



MESOLONGHION 343 

town on their cannon, and that if he wished he might 
come and take them off. On May 10 the first bomb 
was shot into the town. From that time the attack 
was almost incessant. On June 10 a small flotilla of 
Greek ships arrived and drove away the Moslem 
vessels that were patroling the sea and preventing all 
communication from that side. A month later a large 
fleet was seen gradually to approach. The Meso- 
longhians thought that it was assistance coming to 
them. But soon the red flags of the Moslems were 
descried on the masts, and the joy passed to the ranks 
of the assailants. Again Reshid summoned the city 
to surrender. But the response which he received 
showed that disappointment did not lessen the bravery 
of the Mesolonghians. 

Then Reshid heard that a Greek fleet was about to 
come to Mesolonghion. With the determination of 
taking the town at all costs before this assistance could 
arrive, he stormed the town on August 2. But he had 
to go back to his tents with his army lessened by 500 
men. As soon as the Greek fleet of 40 ships arrived 
it began to worry the Turks by sending blazing fire- 
ships to drift toward the Moslem vessels. These tac- 
tics so scared the Moslem commander that he suddenly 
decided that he was needed at Alexandreia in Egypt, 
and sailed away, claiming, a victory, however, because, 
as he said, he had not been defeated. This Greek fleet 
brought provisions and ammunition. And how much 
the Mesolonghians needed ammunition is evident from 
the story that they had but two kegs of powder. 
Reshid then devised a new plan for mastering the 
determined Mesolonghians. He set his men to work 



344 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

and constructed a long mound that was higher than the 
defensive walls of the town and extended from the 
Moslem camp to the Franklin battery in the east wall 
of Mesolonghion. The mound, being built in such 
a way as continually to protect those who were build- 
ing it, finally was completed across the moat and up 
to the edge of the Franklin battery. But in the mean- 
time the Mesolonghians had built a new wall of pro- 
tection and were ready to abandon the Franklin bastion. 
The Moslems rushed along their mound and took 
the Franklin by storm. Then the Mesolonghians after 
a few days made a sortie and not only cut down all 
the Moslems that were trying to defend the Franklin 
and the mound, but spread such terror among the 
assailants that Reshid shortly after despaired of being 
able to take the city by storm. Fearing for the safety 
of his army he abandoned all active operations and 
retired to a considerable distance and encamped near 
the foot of Mount Zygos. 

This was the critical moment in the progress of the 
siege. Reshid had bitterly learned that his men could 
not stand against the bayonets and daggers of the 
Mesolonghians in an assault. His men were woefully 
suffering from hunger and sickness. Many were the 
desertions. The Mesolonghians and the rains had 
completely destroyed all his besieging works. But 
the Greeks did not take full advantage of these cir- 
cumstances. The Greek fleet brought no new provi- 
sions. The Mesolonghians themselves instead of 
hastily preparing for future contingencies spent con- 
siderable time in rejoicing over their good fortune. 
Doom was against them. The sultan of Turkey, 



MESOLONGHION 345 

determined to have Mesolonghion at all costs, even at 
the sacrifice of his pride in his own soldiers. He 
decided to call Ibrahim's Egyptians to the aid of Resh- 
id's Albanian and Turkish soldiers. Ibrahim accord- 
ingly left the Peloponnesos which he had almost 
completely overrun and on January 7, leading 20,000 
Arabs, he came and pitched his tents near those of 
Reshid. Seeing the apparently insignificant fortifica- 
tions of Mesolonghion, he thought that he could 
take it by a simple assault, and superciliously asked 
Reshid how it was possible for him to have wasted so 
much time before "that old fence." Hatred deep and 
lasting grew up between Reshid and Ibrahim. Ibrahim 
proposed either to be permitted to take "the old fence" 
himself or else that Reshid assume the obligation of 
taking it unaided. Reshid accepted the first alterna- 
tive, and withdrew into his camps with all his forces. 
It used to be said that Ibrahim, before making any 
attack, sent messengers advising the Mesolonghians to 
send deputies to him who could speak Turkish or Al- 
banian or French to treat with him concerning sur- 
render. They replied, "We are not educated men and 
do not know so many languages. But we know our 
swords and guns." 

Then the siege began afresh. In January the Greek 
admiral Miaoules with twenty-seven ships arrived. He 
drove away the sixty vessels of the Turkish fleet, 
delivered supplies of food and ammunition to the town 
sufficient for two months, and then returned to Hydra. 
Toward the end of January Ibrahim had fully pre- 
pared for operations and began the bombardment. In 
three days his forty cannon had leveled most of the 



346 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

houses. After leveling- the town, Ibrahim made a 
fearful assault against the bastion Botsares, and in the 
night of February 27 succeeded in capturing it. But 
at daybreak, when the Mesolonghians could better 
distinguish their enemies, by an awful attack with their 
sabers they drove out the Moslems and reconquered 
the bastion. Then Reshid sent a messenger to Ibrahim 
to ask him "what he now thought about that 'old 
fence.' " 

After this repulse Ibrahim bent himself from his 
haughty bearing and asked Reshid to assist in the 
siege. The two generals then united their forces. But 
in spite of all their strength Ibrahim believed that he 
could not capture the town except by famine. And 
in fact famine it was that finally was to be the con- 
queror. In April their food was almost all consumed. 
They tried to keep up sufficient strength by eating 
leather and worms and rats and seaweed. But disease 
began to decimate them. Emaciated to the last ex- 
tremity, pale as ghosts, with sunken eyes, they con- 
tinued to keep guard in their bastions and along their 
walls and sea coast. Ibrahim still afraid of them sent 
messengers bearing extremely favorable terms of sur- 
render. 

Finally the Mesolonghians were able to defend their 
ruined hovels no longer. But they did not contemplate 
even for a moment the idea of surrendering. They 
decided to cut their way through the assailing hosts 
and escape to the mountains. The plan was one of 
those that might possibly eventuate successfully on ac- 
count of its hopelessness. They succeeded in sending 
out messengers to the klephtic leaders in the mountains 



MESOLONGHION 347 

of Zygos announcing their determination and asking 
assistance in the undertaking. These klephts were to 
come down and divert the attention of the Moslems 
by skirmishing with them in the rear. The exodus was 
fixed for the night of April 22. They burned all their 
small property and were ready. Three generals, 
Botsares, Makres, and Tsabellas, were to lead the three 
divisions. In front was to proceed a portion of those 
who were in condition to fight. After these were to 
come the sick and aged and children and women. In 
the rear were to follow the rest of the soldiers. Some 
of the sick and aged and others who refused to depart 
from the town were left behind. A Bulgarian traitor 
had forewarned Ibrahim of the premeditated attempt to 
escape. The three columns stealthily moved out of the 
town and hid themselves in the space between the walls 
and the Moslem camps. There they lay on the ground 
waiting to hear the musketry of their countrymen from 
the mountains in the rear of the enemy. But the hours 
went on and no such sign was given. Then suddenly 
from behind Zygos the moon arose. They could no 
longer stay lying where they were. They leaped up 
and dashed on to break through the enemies' lines. 
The Moslems, who were waiting for them, met them 
with tremendous volleys. Then a terrific hand to hand 
encounter ensued. In the confusion was heard the cry, 
"Turn back, turn back." Whence it came no one after- 
ward knew. But at the moment it wrought confusion. 
Many, thinking that it was an order of their leaders, 
rushed back to the town followed by detachments of 
Moslems. The others kept on, cutting a passage with 
their swords. The palikars who were in the lead and 



348 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

those who brought up the rear could not be withstood. 
Only on the helpless in the middle of the columns did 
the assailants wreak havoc. Finally it seemed that 
many were to be saved. They had passed through the 
enemies' lines and had reached the field beyond. But 
here a detachment of five hundred horsemen drove 
down upon them. Even these horsemen could not hold 
against the sabers of the palikars, but they kept riding 
down and killing the women and children and old men. 
At last the Mesolonghians reached the mountains, but 
here again they fell in with a detachment of Albanians 
who again wrought much slaughter. Eighteen hundred 
of them finally arrived at the town of Platanos, where 
they were in safety. After staying here a few days 
they proceeded on and came to the large town of 
Amphissa. From Platanos to Amphissa many died 
on the way through the effects of previous hunger 
and exhaustion. After reaching Amphissa they were 
counted and it was found that those who survived the 
exodus were thirteen hundred. 

When the cry of "turn back" was heard, those who 
retreated into the town were more than six thousand. 
As most of them were non-combatants, they could do 
nothing against the assailants that pursued them. The 
Moslems easily got possession of the town. The scenes 
that were then enacted were in part most fiercely savage 
and in part most gloriously heroic. The assailants for 
a time slew all whom they could approach. Women 
and children formed no exception. They then began 
to take captives. Youths with the brave blood of 
Mesolonghion in their veins were afterward sold in the 
Moslem slave markets. Of the four thousand that 



MESOLONGHION 349 

thus were reduced to bondage, some were afterward 
ransomed and came back to the holy ruins of their 
town. Three thousand heads were gathered up by the 
Turks and Arabs as trophies of their slaughterous 
victory. Among the fallen were several prominent 
phil-Hellenes, notably Dr. Meyer, the Swiss physician, 
who lived in Mesolonghion and there published for 
several years the Chronicle, the first journal ever regu- 
larly printed in Greece. To add to the horrors, Turks 
fought against Egyptians here and there in their 
quarrels over the booty and the slaves. 

In the midst of the fire and murder and plunderings 
a number of Mesolonghians had gathered into one of 
the larger magazines. They say that more than a 
thousand children and women and old men were in this 
spacious storeroom. The soldiers of the enemy pressed 
in to capture them. Then an old hero named Christos 
Kapsales held a blazing fagot in his hand. When the 
Moslems were well within the walls, old Kapsales in 
mighty voice chanted forth the anthem, beginning "Be- 
think Thee of Us, O Lord/' and plunged his blazing 
torch into the kegs of powder. Kapsales' offering on 
this bloody altar of freedom included in its hecatombs 
of victims all the Christians and Moslems that were 
within these walls. 

Next morning's sun from behind Zygos looked 
down upon the blackened and corpse-strewn ruins of 
Mesolonghion. Two years passed before signs of free 
life again could show themselves on the shores of 
the lagoons. But on May 14, 1828, the flag that 
the Mesolonghians loved was again planted on the 



350 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

immortal site. Since then Mesolonghion is again 
a Greek town. Many of its heroes lie buried in 
an honored spot which is proudly known as the 
"Heroon." 



THE ARGOLID AND THE MYKENLANDERS 

Dove la storia e muta parlano le tombe. 

When the traveler issuing from the Tretos Pass, 
as he goes southward from the land of Korinth, 
catches a first wide glimpse of the outspread Argolid 
plain, his thoughts forsake all modern allurements and 
go asearching into the misty and undated ages of 
prehistoric Hellenic foretime. The lofty rock of 
Larisa which is the citadel of mythic Argos, the low 
long ledge whereon Kyklop workmen builded for 
Prcetos the palace of Tiryns, and the storied heights 
which used to protect Agamemnon's wide-wayed 
golden city of Mykense distract the dream-held 
beholder from all knowledge that is not rooted in pre- 
historic times. 

Not only has this land been associated with many 
of the oldest traditions and myths of Greece, but 
here also have modern scholars succeeded in first rais- 
ing the misty veil of Lethe that had shut off from us 
and our forefathers all the Hellenic ages prior to the 
seventh or eighth century before Christ, and by dis- 
coveries that had their beginning here, have peered 
through that mist and now discern long and interest- 
ing ages of human activity and strife such as here and 
elsewhere in Greekland took place as far back even as 
three thousand years before the beginning of our era. 
Thirty years ago the excavator Schliemann dug up 
for us the first sound testimonials that give witness to 
the qualities of that bygone life. Since then the 

3Si 



352 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

science has made its progress in giant strides, and 
now the results are many and clear. 

Schliemann's discoveries reached their highest im- 
portance and most positive form in the ruins at Myke- 
nae. A definite kind of civilization was unearthed and 
ascertained. Since then, comparatively earlier and 
later forms of civilization prior to historic times have 
likewise been discovered and understood. The civiliza- 
tion found to have existed at Mykenae in the palmiest 
days of that city has been clearly shown to have con- 
temporaneously existed not only at Mykenae but as 
well at many other places in Greekland. Since this 
civilization has come down to us unnamed, those who 
discovered it had to give it an appellation, so that it 
might be tangibly handled and discussed. Out of honor 
to the place where it was first discovered, and also 
on account of the fact that it reached perhaps its great- 
est perfection at this revered town of Mykenae, scholars 
have agreed to recognize by the name of Mykenaeic, 
this peculiar civilization which flourished here in Greek- 
land in the days of long ago. After this period of 
civilization received its name of "Mykenaeic," it was 
then easy to give the appellation of "pre-Mykenaeic" to 
such civilization as immediately preceded this, and the 
name of "post-Mykenaeic" to all civilization that inter- 
vened between the decay of Mykenaeic civilization and 
the dawn of the later ages that are known to us through 
Greek literary history. Other more accurate names 
are also in use. But for the present we may say that 
the history of primeval Greece may be divided into 
three great periods : pre-Mykenaeic, Mykenaeic, and 
post-Mykenaeic. These three periods are so early as to 



THE ARGOLID AND THE MYKENLANDERS 353 

belong all to the ages of undatable history. But never- 
theless by approximation it is possible to say that the 
second or Mykenseic period flourished for about five 
or six hundred years, and that it closed about one 
thousand years before Christ; and that the post- 
Mykenaeic period began immediately with the decline 
of the Mykenseic civilization and continued down to 
historic times, to about seven or six hundred years be- 
fore the beginning of our era. These three stages of 
civilization are connected with the early history of the 
Argolid. 

There is reason to believe that there lived in Greek- 
land men of the so-called neolithic period, when sharp 
instruments and cutting tools were made not of metal 
but of stone. That this land was previously inhabited 
by still more primitive dwellers, such as we call paleo- 
lithic, is as yet unproven. The habitations of the 
neolithic men of Greekland are found to have been, in 
every place where they have been discovered, built on 
the native rock of citadels. No lower debris is dis- 
cernible. And therefore we may say that no signs 
of paleolithic man are here recognizable. The neo- 
lithic period does not deeply concern us at present, for 
perhaps the earliest of our mythologic or literary ac- 
quaintances in the Argolid had already begun to make 
use of copper, although they had not by any means 
entirely discarded the use of stone. Purer traces of the 
neolithic age are found outside of the Argolid, for 
example on the Akropolis of Athens and on the hill of 
Hissarlik. In dividing the progress of prehistoric 
civilization into the ages of stone, of copper, of bronze, 
and of iron, the anthropologists of course do not teach 



354 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

that the transition from each of these periods to 
the succeeding one was sudden and abrupt. On the 
contrary, stone continued to be long used by the 
men of copper and bronze times, and bronze was 
long used for the manufacture of cutting implements 
by generations of men who had learned the superiority 
of iron. 

The pre-Mykenseic period was an age of copper and 
of bronze. It is probable that the pre-Mykenaeic men 
of Greekland were the descendants of the neolithic men, 
and were not new and fresh immigrants. This is made 
credible by the gradualness of the abandonment of the 
peculiar implements and pottery that were in use 
among the neolithic men. Neolithic wares and imple- 
ments are found at many places in the Argolid, at 
Tiryns for instance and at the Herseon. But these 
remains are such as probably coexisted along with the 
use of copper. The Argolid, however, was, it seems, 
not the center of pre-Mykenseic life here in Greekland. 
This old civilization was developed and rose to impor- 
tance rather in the islands of the ^Egean Sea. It was 
not even confined to what might ordinarily be called 
Greekland. For it was spread over all the shores round 
the eastern Mediterranean, going far into Asia Minor 
and perhaps extending down even into Palestine; 
while toward the west it entered into Italy and Sicily 
and perhaps other countries. It was a chalkolithic 
age, that is, stone was still largely employed, but copper 
was already well known and perhaps even the manu- 
facture of bronze. The copper age of central Europe 
seems to have been almost contemporary with this 
^Egean civilization. And it is not yet possible to decide 



THE ARGOLID AND THE MYKENLANDERS 355 

whether the people of the ^Egean learned from Europe 
the use of copper, or on the contrary perhaps taught 
the use of this metal to the inhabitants of central 
Europe, after having learned it from Mesopotamia or 
Egypt. 

What was the name of this energetic people that 
dwelt here in those days? We do not know. But 
from various ancient scraps of literature we are taught 
that in prehistoric times a widespread and active people 
called the Pelasgians inhabited all these regions. All 
the ante-Hellenic tribes of Asia Minor, of the ^Egean 
Islands, and of Greece proper, as well as of portions 
of more western countries may possibly be more or 
less related with this half-mythic Pelasgic stock. By 
assigning this chalkolithic civilization to the Pelasgic 
race, we at least get a name, otherwise historically 
known, around which we may group our other more 
positive knowledge concerning this remote period of 
time. At least the Pelasgians preceded the Achaeans 
and the Dorians in Greece. In very ancient times all 
the mainland of Greece may have been a "Pelasgia." 
One of the most ancient towns was perhaps Argos in 
this plain, whence the Pelasgians ruled over the sur- 
rounding pasture lands and corn-fields. The citadel 
of this town has never lost the name which the Pelas- 
gians gave to it; for it is even yet known as the 
"Larisa." The pre-Mykenaeic period, after lasting 
perhaps a thousand years, merged into the Mykenaeic 
age about fifteen or sixteen hundred years before 
Christ, and gradually its distinctive characteristics dis- 
appeared. 

Like the preceeding style of civilization, so also did 



356 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the Mykenaeic type extend over a wide area. Not 
having any name to designate the whole group of the 
countries that were inhabited by people of this civili- 
zation, it is permitted for convenience's sake to give it 
a comprehensive name and to call it "Mykenland." 
The inhabitants of this area can then be conveniently 
known as "Mykenlanders." 

At the beginning of this period, the islands of the 
^Egean were still the chief places of Greekland where 
civilization was highest. Here we may mention the 
fabulous sea-king Minos, who ruled the Kretans from 
his wonderful palace at Knosos. But gradually it 
seems that the cities of the mainland of Greece, and 
especially those of the Argolid, and more especially 
Mykenae, rose into pre-eminence. Possibly some new 
race came in, adopted the already-existing culture or 
introduced a more advanced type of it, established it- 
self in the Argolid, intermingled with the more primi- 
tive Pelasgians, and brought Mykenae to the height of 
its glory. These new-comers would be the Achaeans, 
so well familiar to us through the Iliadic Epic. But 
it is not easy to discern how high the Mykenlanders had 
already developed their civilization before the coming 
of the Achaeans. It is, therefore, not clear whether this 
newer civilization was chiefly Pelasgian or Achaean. 
In the later days of the greatness of Mykense, it 
is certain that Achaean lords ruled there. But we can- 
not fix the date of their coming. Whosoever it be that 
started the great period of Mykenaeic civilization, this 
much at least is certain, that the Mykenlanders of the 
later ages were a mixed race, in part Pelasgian perhaps 
and in part Achaean. And it is quite certain that it 



THE ARGOLID AND THE MYKENLANDERS 357 

was from a mixed race of this kind that the Hellenic 
population of historic Greece received its origin. 

Before the coming of the Achaeans the town and 
citadel of Tiryns had already seen its most glorious 
days. Possibly Tiryns was founded in the remote ages 
when a good part of the low plain of Argolis was yet 
a shallow bay of the sea, and the rock upon which the 
prehistoric town was built was an island therein. Neo- 
lithic remains have been found at Tiryns. But in the 
Bronze Age alluvial soil had filled the sea round about 
the rock of the citadel. The surrounding country al- 
ways remained marshy, however, and a portion of it 
is so until the present day. In these marshes, the 
Tirynthians, like their neighbors, the Argives, who 
were equally or yet more antique, had good pasture 
for their flocks of sheep and herds of cattle and droves 
of horses. The Mykenlanders of Tiryns were a power- 
ful folk. This is proven by the massive walls of their 
king's citadel, and by the spaciousness and richness of 
the royal palace. The citadel walls were built of such 
huge stones, and so indestructibly built as to have ex- 
cited the wonderment not only of the ancient Greeks 
but to astonish all who see their remains today. Homer 
mentions these walls, and Pavsanias was amazed at 
them. They are built of great stones hewn but slightly, 
which are balanced and joined tog-ether by smaller 
stones and by mortar of clay. The royal palace on the 
top of this hill is so well preserved in its foundation- 
lines that from its remains a correct notion of the form 
and nature of a Mykenlandic palace can be easily 
formed. It is the best preserved of all palace-ruins of 
that remote period, except the Minoan labyrinth at 



358 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

Knosos in Krete. Besides the Knosian palace the other 
two that are sufficiently well preserved to be compared 
with this of Tiryns are at Mykense and at Goulas in 
Bceotia. 

It has been said that the age of the Mykenlanders is 
known to us as a dateless age of nameless men. This 
is scarcely true. Quite a number of the heroes of those 
days have had their names recorded for us in the un- 
dying myths of early Greece. But as yet the work of 
excavations has brought to our acquaintance the name 
of not even one of the men who then flourished. This 
is so much the more impressed on us because the 
Mykenlanders possessed a system of writing, and a 
good number of their records have been found, es- 
pecially in Krete. But the clay tablets of Knosos keep 
their secrets closed to us. We are not able to read their 
alphabet, and even do not know what language these 
old books hide from us. But it is not easy to say that 
these records of the Mykenlanders will forever remain 
sealed to us. The key to their letters and language 
may some day be discovered. Then to the names of 
Mykenlanders already known from the traditions of 
myth and poetry, will be added perhaps a long list of 
names of kings and lords and tribes and countries, with 
details about expeditions and exploits and commerce 
and society. The history of the Mykenlanders will 
then become more exact and minute. 

Of the three chief fortress-cities on the Argolid 
plain, Argos was perhaps the most ancient, and My- 
kense was the last to be founded. Story has preserved 
the name of the prince who built the high and frowning 
citadel of Mykense. It was Persevs, the son of Akri- 



THE ARGOLID AND THE MYKENLANDERS 359 

sios. Persevs was one day recreating himself by hurl- 
ing the quoit. His father, the king of Argos, who was 
looking on, stepped inadvertently into the line of the 
flying stone, and being struck by it thus met the death 
which had long been foretold to him. Persevs in his 
grief did not wish to reign in his father's stead at 
Argos. He therefore persuaded Megapenthes, king of 
Tiryns, to exchange kingly territories with him. Thus 
did Megapenthes go to reside at Argos, and Persevs 
received the Tirynthian domains. For some unknown 
reason he then built a new citadel in the northern end 
of the plain, eight miles distant from Tiryns, and re- 
moved thither the seat of government. Thus did the 
city of Mykense succeed to the glory and pre-eminence 
of Tiryns. 

The hill of Mykenae was certainly not large enough 
to accommodate the dwelling of all the clansmen who 
owed fealty to Persevs and his descendants. On the 
top of the rock dwelt the king with his nearer relations 
and more potent retainers. Others of the clans lived 
round about the citadel, on the adjoining slopes. 
Others still dwelt in Tiryns perhaps, and in various 
walled settlements in the plain. The citadel was sur- 
rounded by a high and thick wall. This circuit wall 
is even yet well preserved. Only a small portion of it 
has entirely tumbled over the precipitous sides of the 
Chavos ravine. Nowhere however do these walls yet 
stand in their original height. The area inclosed within 
the walls measures about three hundred and fifty yards 
in length, and is about half as wide. A noticeable 
characteristic in the architecture of these walls, and in 
general in the architecture of the Mykenlanders is 



360 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

bulky massiveness. The walls of Mykenae average a 
thickness of about sixteen feet. The walls do not 
batter, but rise perpendicularly. Most of the oldest 
portions of the wall resemble the massive architecture 
of Tiryns. They are built of large roughly hewn 
blocks of stone piled upon each other and bonded to- 
gether by smaller stones and mortar of clay. But there 
are also long stretches of later portions of it built in 
ashlar masonry. Here the stones are cut into square- 
cornered blocks, and are arranged upon each other in 
regular horizontal layers. Then there are also places 
where the wall is in polygonal style. In these places 
the stones are carefully cut into many-sided angular 
shapes, and very neatly joined together, but the corners 
of the stones are seldom right-angled. The existence 
of these three different styles of masonry indicate that 
the walls were often rebuilt or repaired. 

The principal entrance into the citadel was through 
an imposing gate, which was approached by a gradually 
ascending roadway. As this roadway nears the gate 
it is bounded on the left by the wall of the citadel and 
on the right by a huge stone bastion. It would not be 
easy for a foe to enter through this gate by force. The 
defenders of the citadel could attack all such intruders 
with all kinds of missiles from the walls and from the 
bastion. This is the famous Gate of the Lions. The 
opening through the gateway is nearly ten feet wide 
and slightly more than ten feet high. Massive double 
doors that swung on pivots for hinges used to close this 
opening. The doorway is slightly narrower at the top 
than at the bottom — a characteristic of Mykenaeic 
architecture. The gate has received its modern name 



THE ARGOLID AND THE MYKENLANDERS 361 

from the two lions sculptured in relief upon a large 
triangular stone above the lintel of the gate. The two 
lions face each other in a way that recall to mind her- 
aldic representations of mediaeval and modern times. 
Between them is a low column which has the peculiarity 
of being of greater diameter at the top than at the 
bottom. On the pedestal of this column the heraldic 
lions plant their forepaws. The faces of the lions were 
of separate pieces of stone and have fallen off. The 
lions looked out through the approach to the citadel, 
as though to threaten off all unwelcome comers. This 
piece of sculpture was for some time regarded as the 
most ancient example of extant Greek glyptic art. It 
no longer enjoys this distinguished reputation, but 
nevertheless is still thought to be the most remarkable 
specimen of the epoch to which it belongs. Besides 
this grand Gate of the Lions there was another nar- 
rower and less pompous entrance to the citadel through 
a postern gateway. 

As in the city walls, so also in the houses, the art of 
building had in these remote ages reached a remarkable 
state of perfection. This is proven by the ruins of the 
palaces. The traces of the palace at Mykense, however, 
are not so clear as are those at Tiryns. In these palaces 
there was, as is yet the custom with many oriental 
peoples, a distinct quarter for the women. The life of 
turmoil and warfare and other semi-barbarous activity 
that kept the men occupied, rendered them not desirous 
of the more restful and secluded company of the 
women. Most of the houses, the palaces as well, 
usually had but one story. Of the men's quarters the 
busiest and most frequented part was the large hall in 



362 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

the center of which was the great open fire, the hearth 
of the household. Round this hearth was centered all 
family activity. Here the- women might also come and 
sit, engaged in their occupations of preparing the wool 
for the looms, as did Queen Arete in the palace of the 
Phaeaks, while her noble lord sat leaning against one of 
the four columns round the hearth quaffing ruddy wine. 
Enough fragments of stucco and carvings have been 
found to teach us how rich and how tastefully gorgeous 
were the decorations of the ceilings and walls of these 
palaces. The inside walls were entirely frescoed with 
decorations chiefly of geometric patterns in colors 
simple but harmoniously arranged. Mykenlandic art, 
although of native origin, in many particulars was not 
without foreign influence. In these rich wall frescoes 
such influence is most strongly marked. Inspiration 
must certainly have come betimes to these lands from 
the country of the Egyptians. Commercial relations 
with Egypt existed as far back as the sixteenth century 
or farther. The colors which prevail in the wall-paint- 
ings of the Mykenlanders were chiefly black, white, red, 
and yellow. The door frames and other parts of these 
houses were adorned with ornamentation of bronze and 
other costly material. A semi-barbaric splendor pre- 
vailed indeed throughout these halls. 

Inside of this citadel was discovered a number of 
tombs which have become noted on account of the 
splendid ornaments and weapons and trinkets that were 
found in them by Schliemann. These are the so-called 
"Royal Graves." Six of these graves were found 
within a circular inclosure. Swords and daggers and 
spearheads and arrowheads were found in them. Gold 



THE ARGOLID AND THE MYKENLANDERS 363 

masks were found on the faces of the buried dead, and 
gold ornaments in profusion. Useless and futile at- 
tempts have been made to identify these graves as those 
of Homeric personages. Nameless they must remain. 

More remarkable than the royal shaft graves on the 
citadel are the magnificent domed tombs of beehive 
shape that have been found in the lower city round the 
foot of the citadel. These have been constructed under 
hills, and the entrance to each one was through a long 
passage starting from the side of the hill. The largest 
tomb of this kind is known by a misnomer. It has 
been called "The Treasury of Atrevs." The passage 
which leads into it is twenty feet wide and one hundred 
and fifteen feet long. The vertical stone-built sides rise 
higher as one approaches the tomb under the hill. In 
front of the door to the tomb these walls rise about 
forty-five feet above the level of the door sill. The 
doorway which leads into the vault is almost eighteen 
feet high and more than eight feet wide. Two huge 
stones form the lintel of the door. One of these is more 
than twenty-nine feet long and more than sixteen feet 
in breadth. Its weight has been estimated at about one 
hundred and twenty tons. The interior of the tomb 
is circular at the bottom, having a diameter of about 
forty-eight feet, and rises, shaped like a beehive, to a 
height about equal to the diameter. It is built of well- 
cut stone in regular ashlar layers. Other tombs of this 
magnificent type are found not only here at Mykenae, 
but also elsewhere in Mykenland. 

What has been learned about the religion of the 
Mykenlanders is very little. Possibly in the earlier 
centuries of this epoch, ancestor worship may have 



364 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

been common. At least libations and offerings used to 
be dedicated to the departed, and over the royal graves 
on the citadel an altar was found with a hole in the 
middle, through which libations may have been poured 
down into the earth where the bodies rested. That 
the Mykenlanders possessed a religion is beyond all 
doubt. No remains, however, have been discovered 
that can with any certainty be recognized as a temple. 
Still we cannot say that no temples existed. At least 
these peoples must have had sacred shrines. Their 
religion was ikonic, and representations of some of 
their deities are easily recognizable. They worshiped 
not only their ancestors, but also other gods. These 
gods are sometimes represented in human shape and 
sometimes as monsters. Their religion was accordingly 
both anthropomorphic and theriomorphic. One can 
recognize demons of the water and springs, demons 
of the woods, and demons of the chase. These last are 
certainly connected with some worship not unlike to 
certain forms of the cult of the classical Artemis, the 
woodland goddess. There is some reason for thinking 
that in their places of worship the Mykenlanders some- 
times had an empty throne, the seat of some invisible 
deity. Zevs also was worshiped, and his symbol was 
a double ax. Hera and Aphrodite were likewise 
possibly among the deities of those days. At least a 
most ancient shrine of Hera existed in the Argolid 
and it was in this temple that Agamemnon was 
selected by the assembled chieftains to lead them in 
their expedition against Troy, as a traditional story 
goes. The Mykenlanders also paid homage to a sea- 
god. It need not be thought, however, that all these 



THE ARGOLID AND THE MYKENLANDERS 365 

deities were worshiped by all the Mykenlanders. Each 
locality had its preferences and local traditions. 

Although the civilization and culture of the Myken- 
landers were peculiarly native to the ^Egean and the 
near mainlands, it is well known that vigorous com- 
munication existed between them and other peoples. 
They were in touch with Asia. They owed some of 
their knowledge and skill in handicraft to foreign 
peoples. Possibly from the Babylonians they first 
learned the use of bronze. Nevertheless their inter- 
course with the great nations round the Tigris and the 
Euphrates was perhaps not direct. Their contact with 
the Egyptians, however, was more close. Mykenseic 
wares are found in Egyptian tombs, and Egyptian craft 
and art made its impress on the workmanship of the 
Mykenlanders. But despite all foreign influence, My- 
kenseic civilization remained European and generated 
the classical Hellenic. Their goldsmiths with their 
admirably perfected skill as shown in the seal-rings 
and ornaments and embossed cups, their gem-engrav- 
ers, their metal workers, who made the wonderfully 
wrought inlaid daggers of bronze, their vase-makers, 
who fashioned vessels of clay that were in demand in 
far-off lands, their builders who erected the fortress 
walls and constructed the splendid tombs, their workers 
in gold and silver and bronze and lead and stone and 
terra-cotta and glass-paste — all evinced a freedom of 
hand and spirit, an accuracy of conception, a natural- 
ness and mastership that was not foreign, was not 
imported. It was native. It was the first stage of 
Hellenic life and art. 

After the Perseids had long held high sway over the 



366 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

city of Mykenae, their dynasty succumbed before a new 
king, said to be of foreign origin, of the house of 
Pelops. To this new dynasty belonged the hero Aga- 
memnon, whose greatness and rule over the Achseans 
from his seat in much-golden Mykense are besung by 
the poets of the Iliadic Epic. Under the rule of these 
Pelopid kings, Mykense rose to her zenith of glory. 
Agamemnon, who was the chief lord, not only of the 
Argolid, but of the neighboring islands, personifies the 
power of this city in those mighty days. Afterward 
when this great period was half forgotten and the 
minstrels sang of the glory that once was, they took 
Mykenae and Troy as their model Mykenlandic cities, 
and Agamemnon as the mightiest ruler. For after the 
lapse of ages, sad days came to Mykense and the Argo- 
lid. New and much more barbarous tribes, though 
perhaps akin, came down into this desirable plain. 
Dorian war-men became masters of the fortress-towns 
of Argolis. About eleven hundred years before Christ 
these untamed invaders came into the Peloponnesos. 
The palace of the Pelopids on Mykenae's citadel was 
laid low by fire. Blackened remains and ashes still 
testify to this. Then the conquerors took up their 
abode among the ruins of the conquered. The progress 
of civilization was retarded. For two or three cen- 
turies new barbarism enthroned its dark might among 
the Mykenlanders. But with time the checked and 
repressed spirit again began to grow afresh. A new 
day began to dawn over these lands that had for a time 
been darkened by the Dorian clouds. Art and science 
and intellectuality again prevailed. Greece began her 
interrupted course anew. And in the progress of time 



THE ARGOLID AND THE MYKENLANDERS 367 

she again rose to inimitable glory. That was when she 
entered into the classical period. But at that time 
Tiryns was merely a village and Mykense was not much 
larger. Nevertheless they disappear nobly from his- 
tory. On the roll of honor written to enumerate and 
commemorate those who helped to drive away the hosts 
of Xerxes we can read the words "From Mykense 
and Tiryns, four hundred." 



PRE-HELLENIC WRITING IN THE ^GEAN 

Philology, co-operating with kindred sciences in 
the uneasy search after the origins of peoples and 
customs and languages, has discovered many a signifi- 
cant fact regarding the historic beginnings and intel- 
lectual progress of various races of men. Not the 
smallest addition to science in this direction has been 
the discovery and decipherment of various written 
languages belonging to nations whose civilized career 
antedates by many centuries the events recorded on 
the earliest pages of ordinary history. Where these 
studies have not brought us into new and correct cog- 
nizance of the origins of certain peoples or institutions, 
at least they have often suggested to us new principles 
of investigation. And to the scientist the determi- 
nation of principles is sometimes more acceptable 
than the discovery of origins. Through the unrid- 
dling of her old hieroglyphic signs Egypt has broken 
her mystic silence and is narrating to the disciples of 
Champollion the strange details of her distant 
antiquity. Venerable Babylon and adjacent countries 
are now neither mute nor do they speak to us in 
unintelligible tongues ever since Grotefend in the first 
years of the nineteenth century began to find out how 
to read the cuneiform records. Karians and Lykians 
and other Anatolic peoples, who had been kept to our 
knowledge only through the unsatisfactory notices of 
the classic Greek writers, are now enjoying a fresh 
after-fame because inscriptions in their languages are 

368 



PRE-HELLENIC WRITING IN THE ^GEAN 369 

beginning to be discovered. Even the Hittites, a people 
whose once powerful and important existence had 
been entirely forgotten, will finally give out some of 
their history to the world of scholars, although their 
inscriptions on the rocks of Asia Minor, Chaldaea, and 
Syria still baffle the skill of such scholars as Sayce 
and Menant and Peiser. 

Even within the bounds of Greek lands, monu- 
ments inscribed in letters belonging to a long-lost 
system of writing were discovered early in the nine- 
teenth century. These non-Hellenic characters which 
have been intelligibly legible since 1873, or somewhat 
earlier, were found on coins and other objects with 
inscriptions in the island of Kypros which lies on the 
highway between the Anatolian and the western 
world, and has therefore always been partly European 
in its civilization and partly Asiatic. At first it might 
have been hoped that this discovery would consider- 
ably broaden our knowledge concerning the earlier ages 
of Hellenic civilization. But all such hopes soon 
dwindled into small proportions when it became evi- 
dent that this new-found alphabet of Kypros revealed 
to us no documents older than the fourth century 
before Christ. The only fact that need be added here 
concerning these enchorial Kypric characters is that 
evidently they were not originally intended for the 
Greek language, although such is the language of these 
Kypric inscriptions. Each character represents an 
entire syllable rather than a simple phonetic sound. 
Accordingly the set of characters constitute a "sylla- 
bary" and not an "alphabet," as the latter term is 



370 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

usually understood. Where and when this Kypric syl- 
labary originated is still unknown. 

In the second millennium before our era a remark- 
able civilization flourished in the islands and main- 
land round about the ^gean Sea. Until some twenty 
or thirty years ago, all accurate knowledge of the 
quondam existence of this civilization had been lost. 
For it is only as a result of the archaeological investi- 
gations that followed the successful excavations of 
the explorer Schliemann in Argolis of Greece and at 
Troy of Asia Minor that the rise and spread and 
downfall of a pre-Homeric civilization came to be 
accorded a place among admitted historic facts. In 
the selecting of a name for this prehistoric and pre- 
Hellenic period of civilization, much stress is laid on 
the fact that the first evidence of its power and mag- 
nificence had been found in the Argolid city of 
Mykense. "The Mykenseic Age" therefore is the con- 
ventional name for that unique period of human 
development and culture which is computed to have 
been well in its ascendency earlier than 1,500 years 
before Christ, and to have tragically come to a pre- 
mature end about 1,000 years before our era. In the 
age during which the familiar Homeric poems were 
composed, the culture which had been sustained by 
many generations of Mykenseic peoples had long since 
entirely disappeared. There grew up a newer phase 
of human activity, inaugurated by the incoming of 
new, and, at first, ruder tribes of men. Neverthe- 
less, the splendors of Mykenseic days were still dimly 
recalled in the songs of the troubadours and in the 
myths of folk-story and cult, even though no clear his- 



PRE-HELLENIC WRITING IN THE ^GEAN 371 

torical consciousness of this former and faded glory 
had been transmitted to the men of the age in which 
the Homeric poems were made. The duty of redis- 
covering it and of restoring it to its proper pedestal of 
honor among the epochs of human progress has 
agreeably fallen to the lot of modern historians. 

Since the archaeological discoveries demonstrate 
that this splendid period of culture had spread its 
influence over a large and populous area and had 
endured for so many centuries, scholars were some- 
what disappointed by the fact that no positive indica- 
tions of any sort could be unearthed which would 
strengthen if not demonstrate the logical assumption 
that these otherwise highly intelligent men were not 
entirely without some technical system of recording 
events and of communicating with each other by 
written messages. Indeed, the strange belief that 
throughout the entirety of their long career the Myke- 
nseic peoples continued to be ignorant of letters, began 
to cease from being considered as untenable. Never- 
theless, on historical grounds such a belief was not 
logical, for most peoples who in any near way approach 
to the degree of civilization then prevalent in the 
^Egean possess and employ some method of record- 
ing thought. Moreover, other nations, who, like the 
Egyptians and the Babylonians, were contemporaries 
of the Mykenseic peoples, and were in regular inter- 
course with them, already possessed well-developed 
systems of writing, and if the men of the y£gean had 
not native writing signs, at least they might have 
adopted some one of the methods in vogue among 
their neighbors. 



372 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

But in the year 1880, the American traveler Still- 
man, while visiting the Island of Krete, observed and 
noted certain peculiar signs incised on large blocks 
of gypsum that formed the facing of the walls of a 
prehistoric building on the deserted site of the ancient 
town of Knosos. Stillman's scholarly acumen led 
him rightly to conjecture that the ruins which he saw 
here must be the remains of the famous "labyrinth" of 
Kretan legend, and that the signs which were marked 
on the blocks of gypsum must be characters pertaining 
to some kind of writing. 

The next forewarning which indicated that finally 
records dating from the Mykenadc Age would proba- 
bly come to light, happened in the year 1889. Doctor 
Tsountas, during the progress of excavations which 
he then was conducting at Mykense on the top of the 
citadel there, found a small pestle of stone on which 
a group of a few simple characters was incised. 
These characters may possibly be a mark indicating 
the owner or maker of this household utensil. It was 
soon observed that one of the signs in this short 
inscription seems to resemble one of the letters in the 
previously known Kypric syllabary. 

Similarly other letter-like signs were found sporad- 
ically at other places. And at last, in the year 1893, 
the reasonably suspected existence of Mykenseic writ- 
ing was turned into indubitable fact. Mr. A. J. 
Evans, keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, in the 
course of a voyage of discovery in eastern Krete, 
found in the possession of the inhabitants a large 
number of odd-shaped gems and other small stones 
inscribed with signs which certainly appeared, even 



PRE-HELLENIC WRITING IN THE AEGEAN 373 

at first examination, to be letters of a hitherto 
unknown variety. By their peculiar technique and 
material these gems and stones testify in their own 
behalf that they are very ancient, and indisputably 
date back to the remotest centuries of the Mykenseic 
Age. Some of them are beanlike in shape, and 
others are glandular. Some of them may have origi- 
nally been intended to be used as amulets and worn 
on the body as protective against certain evil influ- 
ences and misfortunes, while others were certainly 
intended to be used as seals or signets. While these 
incised seal-stones have been found most plentifully 
of all in Krete, they also are sometimes discovered 
elsewhere, chiefly on the islands, however, and on this 
account they have come to be frequently mentioned as 
"Island Gems." 

When, by successive and abundant finds, the num- 
ber of Mykenseic objects with inscriptions on them 
became large enough to justify an attempt at a com- 
parative study of the various characters inscribed, it 
immediately became apparent that more than one dis- 
tinct system of writing were represented on these 
engraved objects. At least two styles of character 
could be recognized. One of these employed pictorial 
or hieroglyphic signs. Herein a comparison with 
Egyptian writing was immediately suggested. The 
other style was made up of letters which were cut 
in a less pictorial way and in more linear shapes, and 
therefore present a quasi-alphabetic appearance dis- 
tantly resembling even modern letters. 

The plausible theory that most systems of writing 
have started from crude and simple picture-writing 



374 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

receives additional confirmation from both these 
classes of pre-Hellenic yEgean writing. As regards 
the pictographic signs, it has been noticed that three 
well-marked stages may clearly be traced in their 
gradual development from primitive image-writing up 
through a transitional period in which the characters 
are in part still the original images and in part abbre- 
viated and conventionalized hieroglyphs, finally 
becoming in the third stage a completely convention- 
alized hieroglyphic or pictographic symbol, then no 
longer representing simply what is indicated by the 
rudely outlined primitive picture, but expressing some 
additional or even entirely different thought or word 
which in the course of time came to be associated with 
that primitive picture. However, the dissimilarity 
which these three grades bear toward each other is 
one which is the natural result of growth and develop- 
ment, and indicates no radical difference. All three 
grades are therefore properly included under one 
general name. They are known as "Pictographs." 

That the second kind of Mykenaeic writing, which 
Mr. Evans properly calls "linear" script, is an out- 
growth from the original or ideographic forms of 
these pictographs which we have just been consider- 
ing is quite improbable, although this linear script 
undoubtedly had some kind of image-writing for its 
original form. The most acceptable supposition 
which the present state of the question permits is that 
the two kinds of writing sprang up each independent 
of the other and from an independent set of original 
images. It may therefore be now accepted as an indis- 
putably ascertained historical truth that within the 



PRE-HELLENIC WRITING IN THE iEGEAN 375 

boundaries of the pre-Hellenic Greek world there con- 
temporaneously existed at least two different and 
separate kinds of writing. Thus have the inhabitants 
of the ancient Mykenseic kingdoms lately gained new 
glory in the eyes of the modern world because of the 
satisfied conviction that they were not entirely igno- 
rant of letters. 

Now, after archaeological discovery and philologi- 
cal investigation have promulgated the former exist- 
ence of these systems of writing in Greek lands during 
the Mykenaeic Age, the persuasion more and more 
irresistibly asserts itself that we would be unable to 
reasonably understand so perfect and high a civiliza- 
tion as the Mykenseic without postulating the con- 
temporary prevalence of some kind of writing there. 
On a-priori grounds writing must be enumerated 
among the Mykenaeic arts, since it is now evident 
that this art was known among other and less highly 
advanced peoples of Europe. All branches of anthro- 
pological and ethnical studies converge to the belief 
that in the islands of the ^Egean and on the shores of 
the adjacent mainlands we ought to locate one of the 
very early centers of culture in Europe. In other 
parts of European territory, as, for instance, in 
Northern Italy, where prehistoric civilization was not 
in a state of such advanced perfection as it was in the 
^Egean, there are, nevertheless, visible indications that 
there existed the ability and habit of recording events 
or facts in some way. 

After becoming a convert to the belief in the exist- 
ence of a Mykenseic or pre-Homeric writing, it is 
possible more intelligently to interpret the dim refer- 



376 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

ence in the Iliad to some kind of writing which is 
mentioned as having been in vogue during the remote 
ages made memorable by the deeds of Homer's heroes, 
and to put some kind of credence in the myth which 
attributed to Palamedes the invention of a system of 
writing. In a celebrated passage of the Iliad it is nar- 
rated that Proetos, who was king of Argos in Myke- 
nseic or possibly pre-Mykenseic times, sent a written 
and sealed message from his palace at Tiryns to his 
father-in-law in Lykia of Asia Minor, the import of 
this secret message being that Bellerophon, the bearer 
of it, should be put to death, for he had sinned against 
the honor of the house of Proetos. Proetos' dreadful 
letter, his "semata lygra," was probably expressed not 
by linear characters, but by hieroglyphic signs. Thus 
are woven into one of the episodes of the Iliad threads 
from an obscure recollection of the fact that the long- 
vanished men of the great Mykenseic Age had some 
pictorial or graphic way of corresponding with each 
other. Likewise the story of Palamedes now would 
seem to have been built upon some foundation of 
truth. For he also belonged to this prehistoric age, 
and lived in the Mykenaeic town of Navplion in the 
Argolid, where some vestiges of writings have been 
found in the course of the excavations carried on dur- 
ing these last years. The myth, however, which 
bestows on Palamedes the honor of being the inventor 
of writing is only dimly known to us. For the Greeks 
of historic times employed the so-called Phcenikian 
alphabet which, according to a later myth, was intro- 
duced into Greece from Phoenikia by Kadmos. This 



PRE-HELLENIC WRITING IN THE AEGEAN 377 

Kadmean story may have overshadowed the Palame- 
dean one. 

It is on the Island of Krete that the most valuable 
collections of documents with pre-Hellenic writings 
on them have been discovered. This may be due 
merely to chance; but nevertheless Krete has been so 
eminently and graciously the land of these finds as to 
make it easy of belief that the Kretans more than 
any other Mykengeic nation made frequent use of the 
practice of keeping records, and brought this civiliz- 
ing art to considerable perfection. The degree of kin- 
ship existing between the Kretan methods of writing 
and the methods used by the other contemporaneous 
inhabitants of Mykenseic countries has not yet been 
ascertained. It may even be possible to suspect that 
the specimens discovered in other places belong not 
to the same system as do the Kretan documents, but 
to independent and perhaps less frequently employed 
and less advanced methods. One reason why the 
quantity of written documents discovered in Krete 
exceeds so surprisingly the quantities found elsewhere 
is possibly because in Krete use was made of writing 
material of a less perishable nature than may have com- 
monly been selected for this purpose in the other parts 
of the Mykenseic world. Among other races whose 
degree of civilization corresponds somewhat to that of 
the Mykenseic peoples it is not always the less perish- 
able material of stone or bronze or other similarly dur- 
able substances that is used for writing upon, but 
rather leaves and bark, and leather and other cheap 
and practical but easily destructible stuffs of this kind. 
Even in Krete the finds are not as rich and important 



378 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

as they would have been if solid and lasting materials 
had been exclusively in use here as material to write 
upon. We have some testimony preserved in litera- 
ture to the effect that these old Kretans were practi- 
cal enough to also use more easily manageable 
material and to have had the habit of writing on cer- 
tain kinds of leaves. 

The seal-stones and gems which bear the picto- 
graphic letterings have been found mostly in eastern 
Krete. A number of them were procured by pur- 
chase from the village women there. Most of them 
are cut from steatite, or soapstone, a mineral which 
exists in large quantities in Krete. They owe their 
long and good preservation not to the insignificant 
money value of the material from which they are 
made, but simply to the fact that they have been 
regarded as amulets, and for ages the successive gen- 
erations of Kretan women have been wearing them 
as such attached to a string which they tie round the 
neck. Possibly their original purpose was, as already 
stated, in part amuletic. 

Fortunately our knowledge of these pictographs is 
not confined to what we get from the steatite seal- 
stones and amulets. For at Knosos, which lies in the 
central part of Krete, and which was in Mykenaeic 
days the palace of the powerful and terrible king 
Minos, whose after-fame made him a mythic hero, a 
great quantity of clay tablets, clay labels, and other 
such objects have been dug up by Mr. Evans, bearing 
inscriptions, some in pictographic characters and 
others in linear script. These clay inscribed tablets 
are not very different in shape from those already so 



PRE-HELLENIC WRITING IN THE AEGEAN 379 

well known to scholars from the large finds of cunei- 
form inscriptions at Babylon. This striking identity 
of a peculiar writing material in Babylon and in Krete 
need be the occasion for no surprise. Communication 
between the islands of the ^Egean and distant Baby- 
lon in the Bronze Age is otherwise well authenticated. 
In the Mediterranean region — on the island of Kypros, 
more exactly — there has been found a genuine 
imported Babylonian tablet with cuneiform writing 
upon it. It was certainly brought into this part of the 
world from Babylon at a very early date. 

The greatest quantity of the clay tablets of Myke- 
naeic Knosos bear linear script. In fact, outside of one 
single deposit of pictographic tablets all the others are 
of the linear script. 

Inasmuch as the most primitive of these picto- 
graphs belonged to a variety of pure image-writing, 
they were intended to convey no other thoughts than 
those portrayed by the picture, or else suggested by it, 
at least remotely. But how far they gradually 
departed from being ideographs, coming to stand not 
so much for a concrete object as for a word or defi- 
nite articulate sound or for the name of the object, and 
ultimately, in their upward progress toward perfec- 
tion, to indicate a syllabic sound, as did the Egyptian 
hieroglyphs and the Kypric characters, cannot yet 
be determined. However, the peculiar groupings of 
the characters as noticed on some of the seal stones 
would lead to the conjecture that the Kretan picto- 
graphs, in their latest stage, had indeed come to have 
a syllabic value. But this is the very highest per- 



380 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

fection that can be claimed for them. They certainly 
never became purely phonetic. 

Although no one has yet been able to read a single 
word from these pictographic seals, and, therefore, 
there is no way of our knowing with any kind of 
appreciable preciseness the contents of the inscrip- 
tions, nevertheless now and then the pictographic 
quality of the signs conveys even to us something of 
the idea which was to be conveyed to the original 
Mykenseic observers or readers. Thus we can get a 
distant view of the meaning of such signs as a ship, 
or jars filled with grain, or milk pots, etc. But even 
in such exceptional cases the faint idea comes to us 
unclothed by any Mykenseic word, and therefore 
through these inscriptions we have yet learned 
nothing about the language of the Mykenaeic Kretans. 

It is not improbably asserted that since there flour- 
ished in Krete two distinct and apparently unrelated 
systems of writing, there may have been a reason for 
it in the fact that each kind of writing represented 
either a different language or a clearly different dia- 
lect. Now the fact that the pictographs have, with 
the exception of those on the tablets of a single deposit 
at Knosos, nearly all been found in eastern Krete is 
coupled with the other fact that in very early historic 
times this eastern part of the island was inhabited by 
a peculiar race of men known from the Homeric 
poems as Eteokretans; and the opinion has been har- 
bored that the pictographic inscriptions especially 
represent the language of these Eteokretans. Credi- 
bility is added to this opinion by the recent discovery 
of two inscriptions on the site of the ancient town of 



PRE-HELLENIC WRITING IN THE ^GEAN 381 

Prsesos in the eastern part of the island, written indeed 
in a legible Greek alphabet of the fifth century before 
Christ, but yet in a language which has not been 
identified as being Hellenic. Some have suspected that 
it is not even of the Indo-European family of lan- 
guages. Archaeologists of four different nations, 
English, French, Italians, and Americans, have dur- 
ing the last few years been feverishly exploring and 
excavating in eastern Krete with the hope of dis- 
covering some more decisive clue to the language of 
the Eteokretans. And perhaps some fortunate dis- 
covery here may eventually furnish the magic key to 
their language and to the reading of the pictographs. 
For that the Eteokretan language was preserved down 
to as late as the fifth century before Christ seems 
proven by these two inscriptions of Prsesos. 

There accordingly exists much doubt as to whether 
the pictographs of Krete are the carriers of a non- 
Hellenic tongue or not. But as regards their indige- 
nous origin no such wide room for doubt exists. 
They were certainly developed here in the ^Egean, 
and quite possibly within the limits of the island of 
Krete. They do, indeed, show some affinities to 
other systems of hieroglyphic writings, especially to 
that of the Egyptians and of the Hittites, but yet are 
essentially different from the one and from the other. 
These similarities are due in part to the very nature 
of "ideographic writing, in part to the influence of 
intercommunication — for the intercourse with Egypt 
and with the countries of Anatolia and northern Syria, 
where the Hittites dwelt, was regular and strong — 
and also in part to direct copying. Admittedly there 



382 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

are in the Kretan pictographs a few characters which 
seem to have been borrowed straight from the Egyp- 
tians. 

Since these pictographs are images of things that 
were familiar to the Mykenseic people of Krete, they 
very instructively illustrate for us the civilization of 
those days. From the discoveries made up to the 
present time more than one hundred different pictorial 
signs or separate pictographs have been recognized 
and classified according to their form. Among these 
are depicted, for example, weapons, implements, 
instruments, household utensils, fishes, animals, birds, 
plants, heavenly bodies. It is unnecessary to sepa- 
rately take up each one of these and other similar pic- 
tographs to show in detail what rich additions to our 
knowledge of the Mykenseic civilization may be gained 
therefrom. The lyre was already known for it is 
among the pictographs. It is represented as having 
eight strings. 

The pictographs occur most frequently in small 
groups of from two to seven characters. From the 
direction in which the pictographs face, it seems that 
many of the inscriptions were to be read from 
right to left, as Hebrew letters are read. But other 
inscriptions are written boustrophedon, and have to 
be read, like some of the early inscriptions in Greek, 
from right to left and from left to right alternately. 
Often on the seals, they are scarcely in a straight line 
at all, but present an unarranged and jumbled aspect, 
so that it is difficult to know in what order they were 
intended to be read. In the more careful inscriptions 
on the clay tablets at Knosos the pictograph words or 



PRE-HELLENIC WRITING IN THE AEGEAN 383 

phrases are sometimes separated from each other by 
a mark of division shaped like the letter "X." Thus 
is the correct aspect of separate words or phrases 
ascertainable. 

The most ancient specimens of seals with these 
pictographic signs are of very primitive art. On the 
evidence of the technique of these seals, and of the 
other objects found with them, the opinion is to be 
accepted that the most antique specimens go back to 
the age contemporary with the Twelfth Dynasty of 
Egypt, that is, to the period included between the 
years 2000 and 1600 before Christ, approximately, or 
to the beginning of the second millennium before 
our era. 

The second kind of ^Egean writing, the linear 
script, is typologically much younger in appearance 
than the pictographs. But chronologically it may be 
just as ancient as its older-looking rival. The linear 
system seems to have been known and used over a 
much wider area than the pictographs. For while the 
pictographs may have prevailed nowhere outside of 
Krete, the linear writing, on the contrary, is found in 
several other islands and on the mainland of Greece, 
although it must not be too readily taken for granted 
that all of these scattered specimens of linear writing 
belong to one and the same system. At Knosos alone, 
which has been the most productive mine for finds of 
both varieties of writing, the quantity of tablets with 
linear characters far outnumbers those with picto- 
graphic signs. 

In the island of Kos there still stands a splendid 
citadel which was built in the fifteenth century by the 



384 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

Knights of Rhoclos. The Knights took as material 
for their fort the stones of an old wall which had been 
built to protect the city and harbor in the year 366 
before Christ. On these blocks there are yet clearly 
visible the letters strongly carved on them as "mason's 
marks" by the men of the fourth century before Christ, 
when they were hewing the stones. And. strange to 
say, among the letters used, which are those of the 
universal Greek alphabet of that century, occur four 
signs which are not Greek letters, but which resemble 
four of the Kretan linear signs. Their presence can 
be explained in various ways. Herzog, who dis- 
covered them, thinks that they are the last and crystal- 
lized remains of the once commonly used linear script. 
A few specimens of linear signs have likewise been 
found at Siphnos. at Myken?e. at Xavplion. at Menidi 
in Attika, on the island of Kythera, and even at Gurob 
and Kahun in Egypt, and at Lachish in Palestine. 

W nat was stated concerning the indigenous nature 
of the pictographs may with safety be repeated in 
regard to the linear script. It is not of foreign and 
imported origin, but was developed in the region of 
the JEgean. On account of being more perfect typo- 
logically than are the pictographs, the a-priori sup- 
position is plausible that they are therefore later, 
belonging to a subsequent and more advanced period 
of civilization. But nevertheless this supposition 
seems to be incorrect. On deeper observation the 
linear script appears to be of equal age with the picto- 
graphs. It is not derived from them, although it 
really goes back to image-writing for its origin. The 
two systems, pictographic and linear, seem, however, 



PRE-HELLENIC WRITING IN THE ^GEAN 385 

though they were never identical, to have mutually 
influenced each other somewhat in Krete. The Kretan 
linear system, regarded from a technical point of view, 
is much superior not only to the pictographs of the 
same country, but is in advance of the contemporary 
writing systems of Babylon and Egypt. Although a 
native product, there is nevertheless something of 
direct Egyptian influence to be noticed in this linear 
writing, as was also observed to be true in regard to 
the pictographs. The "ankh" and "ka" frame are 
here represented. But still this linear script is not 
Egyptian, nor is it Anatolian. And no scholars, save 
those who try to derive the whole of Mykenseic cul- 
ture from the East, making it to be Lydian or Karian 
or Hittite or even Phcenikian, would now persist in 
attempting to find a foreign origin for the linear script 
of the ^Egean. 

The inscribed tablets of Knosos are elongated cakes 
of clay, from 4.50 to 19.50 centimeters in length and 
from 1.20 to 7.20 wide. They do not much differ 
from cakes of chocolate in shape and color. The 
inscriptions were incised with a sharp-pointed stylus, 
while the clay from which they were made was still 
damp. Then they were dried by the heat of the sun. 
Most of the tablets unearthed at Knosos had been 
stored away in chests located in different rooms of 
the vast labyrinthic palace. Considering their friable 
nature it is a matter of surprise that the debris and 
soil in which they lay buried ever since the sudden 
destruction of the palace have preserved them so well 
for four thousand years. This mythic palace of 
Minos came to its tragic end in a great conflagration, 



386 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

as the researches of excavation show. And it is to 
the heat of this fire that the good preservation of the 
tablets is in part due. They were thus baked into a 
more durable nature. The coffers in which these tab- 
lets were lying stored away when the conflagration 
fell upon the palace had been officially closed and were 
bound by cords which could not be removed except by 
breaking the official seal that was stamped upon them. 
Thus the tablets could not be tampered with. A few 
of the impresses of these seals have been found. 

These clay tablets undoubtedly referred to the 
affairs of the powerful rulers who lived in the laby- 
rinth. They are the palace archives. Many of them 
evidently relate to accounts concerning tribute, or to 
the royal stores. They contain numeral signs which 
have been recognized and in part deciphered and 
interpreted. Judging from such suggestive compari- 
son as can be made with the tablets of Babylon, it 
may be suspected that others of these Knosian tablets 
refer to royal correspondence, or to treaties and com- 
pacts, or judicial decisions or proclamations. The 
original value of the information contained in the 
records is shown by the precautions employed to pre- 
vent all falsification. Many of the tablets show two 
countermarks or indorsements made by controlling 
officials. One of these countermarks is on the face of 
the tablet, where the writing is, and the other is on the 
back of the tablet. 

The inscriptions are never long. Most of the clay 
tablets have only one or two lines of script, which 
oftenest runs lengthwise along the upper face of the 
tablet. Only one notably long inscription has been 



PRE-HELLENIC WRITING IN THE AEGEAN 387 

found. It contains twenty-four lines of writing. 
Such tablets as have more lengthy inscriptions are 
scored with horizontal marks which separate the lines 
of writing from each other and served as guidance for 
the scribe when he was incising the letters. The 
writing runs from left to right invariably. Some- 
times the words are separated from each other by 
short upright lines. The letters are usually incised 
with skilful care, and, when the tablet happens to be 
well preserved, the characters are quite easily legible. 

There is no reason for believing that the writing 
on these linear tablets is ideographic rather than pho- 
netic or syllabic. The separate characters employed 
are about seventy in number. These would not be at 
all sufficient for a complete and satisfactory set of 
ideographs. But, on the other hand, seventy charac- 
ters would seem too many for a phonetic or alphabetic 
method. The opinion which therefore remains to be 
preferred is that they are neither ideographic nor 
strictly phonetic, but that they belong to a syllabic 
system. 

Like the pictographs, these linear signs are very 
old. The oldest linear inscriptions go back to about 
2,000 years before Christ, and therefore are about five 
hundred years earlier than the Moabite Stone and the 
Baal Lebanon bowls which present us with the most 
ancient inscriptions in' Phcenikian letters. Since the 
classical alphabet of Greece was an adaptation from 
the letters of the Phcenikians, and was applied to the 
Greek language not earlier than the ninth century, we 
see that its presence on Greek soil was preceded by the 
extensive prevalence of an older system of writing a 



388 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

thousand years before these so-called Phoenikian 
letters were brought in. But for reasons which need 
not be repeated here, it must be presumed that the 
Phoenikian alphabet was originally developed from 
some system of pictorial writing, and the names of 
some of the Phoenikian letters, together with their 
most primitive shapes, make it possible for the gratui- 
tous supposition that the Phoenikian alphabet was 
really derived, either wholly or in part, from the very 
image-writing that is found in Krete. If this be true, 
then the Phoenikian alphabet and the Greek letters 
which in their derivatives have become the alphabet of 
most of the civilized nations of the world go back to 
the prototypes of the ^Egean script as these were used 
more than four thousand years ago. And the alpha- 
bet in which this book is printed could then trace its 
long line of descent back to the tablets and seal-stones 
of prehistoric civilization in the eastern Mediter- 
ranean. 

In 1 90 1, new discoveries at Knosos brought to light 
a fresh series of letter-like signs, inscribed on rings 
of bone, resembling bracelets, and on other small 
objects. These latest-found Mykenseic signs are 
linear in type, but are not like those other linear ones 
which we have been describing. Twenty characters 
of this third kind of writing have been recognized, 
fourteen of which are practically identical with later 
Greek alphabetic forms. This is another great sur- 
prise. 

It is necessary to add that the discovery of this 
^Lgean writing may turn out to be one of the most 
important historical revelations of modern times. For 



PRE-HELLENIC WRITING IN THE 7EGEAN 389 

it may possibly furnish us with written documents 
regarding the history of man in this most interesting 
quarter of the Old World, the eastern Mediterranean, 
from the closing of the Neolithic Age down to the end 
of the Bronze Age, when better known historical 
times begin. These inscriptions will not continue to 
defy all attempts to decipher them. Some digrammic 
or bilingual record will furnish the first and necessary 
clue to the reading. After that all will be compara- 
tively easy. In the meantime the world of philologians 
and historians are anxiously awaiting the raising of 
the mystic cloud that is yet covering this much desired 
knowledge. 



THE HILL OF HISSARLIK 

As long as civilization lasts and as long as there con- 
tinues to exist a studious curiosity to know ourselves 
better, the remote and reticent ages wherein flourished 
the more primitive races of our kind will always be a 
fascinating object of historical research. An analysis 
of the motives that urge the investigator to try to pierce 
the gloom which shuts off our vision from so much 
of antiquity would be surprisingly interesting. Behind 
the murky hills of time that intervene he may possibly 
expect to catch some glimmering rays of the cloud- 
covered civilization of those vanished peoples. He may 
wish to compare their knowledge with his own and 
ours. But the line of communication that connects us 
with the bygone ages is neither easy to establish nor 
easy to keep open. The facts transmitted are often 
unintelligible and effectless because they utter them- 
selves in language which we cannot comprehend. But 
historical investigation will not fall into disrepute so 
long as men are anxious to know whence they came and 
where they are, even if it were more evident than it 
even now is that the search will always be laborious 
and the gleanings meager. 

The direct and imposing manner in which old Hel- 
lenic life has entered into so many branches of modern 
progress and modern thought has drawn a goodly 
number of antiquarian investigators to devote their 
energies exclusively to the study of ancient Hellenism 
and its effects on the world. They wish to learn the 

39° 



THE HILL OF HISSARLIK 391 

circumstances under which its undying vitality was 
generated and fostered. It is true that by most of such 
men an ideal Hellenism molded by their own ennobled 
fancy is called into existence, an imaginary kosmos of 
artistic and intellectual perfection which never in the 
history of the ancient world possessed actual reality. 
This sublimated hyper-appreciation of Hellenism has in 
the main been not unbeneficial. It has exalted and 
purified many of our desires by continually luring us 
to higher spheres of action in emulation of the true 
or supposed eminence of our great predecessors. But 
a more correct and scientific appreciation of antiquity 
may after all be still more inspiring and still more 
instructive than any unjustified worship of it may be. 
What we now long for is the truth, no matter what 
this truth reveal to us. 

Ever since the renaissance of antiquity in Europe, 
lovers of art and history have been digging up classic 
sites and rummaging through stony ruins in quest of 
objects of art and records of the past. But the first 
generations of these men were simply amateurs and 
collectors. They were the pioneers in a new science, 
and had all the imperfections that necessarily affect 
such beginners. They did great service to mankind, 
however. Their zeal filled the museums of Italy and 
the rest of Europe with admirable works of art and 
mementos of Greece and Rome. 

After the restoration of freedom to modern Greece, 
in 1828, this country naturally became the choicest field 
for excavators; and signal has been their success. 
Athens and its museums, Delphi, Olympia, and so many 
other places are witness to this. But of all those who 



392 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

set themselves to the task of unearthing buried Greece, 
the two whom this present article makes lengthier 
mention of are Schliemann and Dorpfeld. The former 
is to be praised for his untiring enthusiasm; the latter 
for his trained accuracy. Schliemann was an adven- 
turous German, whose life-dream from his very child- 
hood was to visit and investigate the places rendered 
famous by the songs of Homer. After acquiring a 
sufficient amount of wealth as a merchant, he took up 
his residence in Hellenic lands and began to reap the 
realization of his longings. With fullest faith as to 
the results that would be revealed he pushed his spade 
into the soil of Ithaka and into the debris of Mykenae 
and Tiryns and the supposed site of Troy. These 
places he preferred because they were nearest related 
to the Homeric story. The work of excavating had 
not, even when this scholar began, yet been raised to 
the accuracy and dignity of a scientific procedure, and 
accordingly his enthusiasm was often warmer than 
his observations were exact. Nevertheless he made a 
noble beginning ; and others have industriously brought 
method into the work which he so heartily initiated. 

In the year 1868, Schliemann first set foot on the 
soil of the Troad, in the northwestern corner of Asia 
Minor. It was evident that if Homer's city of Priam 
ever existed, it was within this region called the Troad. 
At that time many authoritative historians preferred 
to assert that such a city had never been in existence; 
that Priam's Troy and the ten-years' siege which it 
sustained were mere poetical fictions of the early 
troubadours of Greece. In this opinion, however, these 
unbelievers were in disagreement with the testimony of 



THE HILL OF HISSARLIK 393 

the classic authors, none of whom ever expressed 
doubts about the reality of Troy. Schliemann belonged 
to the coterie of those who agreed with the classic 
historians and geographers, and believed that there had 
been a real Troy. For him the only questions that 
challenged an answer were such as, "where are the 
ruins of that famous city; where was the Pergamos 
of Priam situated? " 

Within this Troad country, and not far from the 
Skamandros River, are three lone hills, separated from 
each other by a considerable distance, each of which 
has been supposed to correspond to what the site of 
Troy seems to have been. Since in those ages cities 
in this part of the world were always on hilltops, the 
search is rendered easier, because all places in the level 
plain are excluded in advance. These three hills are now 
known by their Turkish names of Bunarbashi, Chiblak, 
and Hissarlik. The knoll of Bunarbashi had attracted 
the notice of the traveler Lechevalier toward the end 
of the eighteenth century; he persuaded himself that 
here must Troy have been. In the year 1864, an 
Austrian scholar, Von Hahn, suffered the same con- 
viction, made excavations, and published a book an- 
nouncing and explaining his apparent success. Under 
the spell of Von Hahn's work, Schliemann at first 
selected Bunarbashi as probably the site looked for. 
But a brief investigation with picks and shovels put 
an end to the identification of Bunarbashi and Troy. 

After being disappointed at Bunarbashi he examined 
Hissarlik. The thorough historian Grote, and a few 
other modern scholars had already expressed their 
views in favor of Hissarlik. In 1870, the excavations 



394 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

were begun. And in the summer of 1873, Schliemann 
thought that he had completed his task, and had identi- 
fied the location of Priam's realm. He had actually- 
found a prehistoric city. And since high above the 
remains of this prehistoric settlement inscriptions were 
found which proved that from at least the fourth 
century before Christ there was on the top of the hill 
a Greek town called Ilion, he concluded that the pre- 
historic town must have been Priam's Troy. He 
joyfully published to the world the results of his 
excavations in a book called Trojanische Altertiimer. 

As time went on Schliemann, who in the meantime 
had gained valuable anaskaptic experience by his 
wonderful discoveries at Mykense, began like many 
others to have doubts regarding the accuracy of his 
first conclusions regarding Hissarlik. In 1878, he 
returned to the Troad and inaugurated new researches. 
Between this time and the year of his death he continu- 
ally busied himself with Troy, and often made new 
excavations. In 1881, a new book appeared with valu- 
able contributions by Burnouf, a former director of 
the French archaeological school of Athens, and by 
Virchow, the celebrated Berlin professor. Another 
book was published in 1883, and a fourth publication, 
a brochure, appeared in 1890. 

From these four publications it can be seen that 
Schliemann had made great discoveries at Hissarlik; 
but the work had not been systematically commenced, 
and therefore much confusion followed. It is not 
necessary here to recount his unavoidable mistakes, for 
they have since been corrected by his friend and col- 



THE HILL OF HISSARLIK 395 

laborator and able successor, Wilhelm Dorpfeld. 
Heinrich Schliemann died in December of 1890. 

The various publications of Schliemann had aroused 
the interest of the phil-historic world. But of the prob- 
lems that had been raised in regard to the different 
ruins found on Hissarlik, the more weighty ones still 
remained unsolved. Investigations were therefore re- 
sumed in 1893. The direction of the excavations was 
intrusted to the already experienced Dorpfeld. Under 
the new direction surprising facts rapidly began to 
shape themselves out of the chaotic masses of earth 
and stones. It was ascertained that the successive 
settlements were at least nine in "number. It was dis- 
covered that the excavations at Hissarlik revealed to 
us a picture not only of Homer's city of Priam, but of 
other interesting settlements, some of which were 
earlier than Priam's city and others were later. Ac- 
cordingly the excavations were no longer noteworthy 
simply as explanatory of life as Homer described it, 
but because they opened out a channel through the life 
of past ages reaching to a length of more than three 
thousand years. The earliest settlement whose remains 
still are strewn on the rock of Hissarlik must have 
been founded as early as the beginning of the third 
millennium before Christ; and the latest civic com- 
munity that erected its houses and temples on the top 
of the hill existed there, as the ruins show, until about 
five hundred years after the beginning of our era. The 
city of Priam seems, indeed, to have been finally identi- 
fied. But it must now divide its importance with that 
of the earlier settlements, because the meagerness of 
our knowledge of these remoter periods renders im- 



396 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

portant every slightest fact concerning them. Definite 
accounts of these important results appeared in two 
books. From the accounts contained in the second of 
these, this chapter of my book receives its existence. 

Of these nine clearly distinct settlements, each, ex- 
cept the first, was built above the debris formed by the 
destruction of the preceding one. Each settlement is 
clearly indicated by a thick and easily distinguishable 
stratum made by the accumulated debris. Thus with 
each succeeding community of inhabitants did the 
niveau of the hill steadily grow higher. The first 
settlement was on the native rock. All the others were 
on successively higher levels, on previously formed 
debris. 

Before indicating the stratum which is supposed to 
contain the Homeric city of the Trojans, a short de- 
scription of some of the earlier successive settlements 
is not out of place. 

The oldest habitations that graced this hill were huts 
of stone, built for the sake of protection and safety on 
the top of the then bare rock, which rises to a height of 
about seventy-five feet above the surrounding level 
plain. The area of the sufficiently level summit was 
much less than 20,000 square meters. Close to the 
edge of the plateau on which their hovels stood, they 
built a defensive wall round about. Outside of this 
inclosure there probably were no houses. This primi- 
tive settlement was entirely confined to the height. The 
inhabitants were masters of the fertile fields and 
pasture lands in which the hill stood, and from this 
plain they chiefly drew their sustenance. Their houses, 



THE HILL OF HISSARLIK 397 

as well as their inclosing wall, were built of roughly- 
broken stone put together with clay mortar. 

Of all the nine settlements this primitive one has 
been the least thoroughly examined. This is because 
much of it cannot be reached by the picks of the 
excavators without first demolishing the ruins of 
later settlements above it. Nevertheless enough has 
been unearthed to allow of an examination into the 
mode of life of these primeval men. They came and 
erected their habitations here during the centuries 
which are known to anthropologists as the neolithic 
period. The neolithic period is the second half of the 
obscure "Age of Stone," when men had not yet become 
familiar with the use of the metals and used to fashion 
most of their cutting implements out of stone. It is 
impossible, from the limited amount of utensils and 
implements that have been found, to determine whether 
these men had already begun to make use of copper as 
well as of stone for cutting instruments, and had thus 
progressed into a higher period of civilization distin- 
guished by the name of the "Copper Age." No copper 
implements have been found. Their axes and hammers 
and wedges and other tools of this kind are all of hard 
varieties of native stone. Likewise their pottery is 
very crude. For the early ages of mankind earthen- 
ware is a reliable indication of the contemporary grade 
of culture. They had not yet discovered the potter's 
wheel. Their cups and dishes and basins and vases 
were fashioned by hand, and show all the irregularities 
of articles made in that way. These earthenware 
utensils were burned and hardened not in potters' kilns, 
but in open fires. The burning is therefore irregular 



398 HELLADIAX VISTAS 

and uneven. These first dwellers on Hissarlik used to 
nourish themselves on the meat and milk of their flocks, 
on the grain that their fields produced, on the mollusks 
that they gathered along the strand, and on the fish 
which the neighboring sea furnished in abundance. 
We cannot give exact dates to the time of their coming 
and the time of their disappearance. We must be satis- 
fied with saying that they were "neolithic men." But 
for the sake of grasping their epoch more tangibly we 
may suppose that they flourished from about 3000 to 
2500 before Christ. 

The second set of inhabitants who came and took 
up their abode on Hissarlik built a mighty citadel there- 
on. So imposing are the ruins and so extensive that 
Schliemann in his untrained haste mistook this for the 
city of Priam. This it could not possibly be, however, 
for it was laid desolate long centuries before Priam's 
day had come. The niveau of this second settlement 
lies about fifteen feet higher than the rock surface on 
which the first inhabitants had built. Five full meters 
of debris therefore did the primitive dwellers leave 
behind them after they disappeared from Hissarlik. 
This second settlement, after an existence of several 
centuries, came to an end about 2,000 years before 
Christ. It perished in a great conflagration. The 
"burnt city," as Schliemann used to call it, was sur- 
rounded by a wall, the lower part of which was built 
of stone and the upper part of sun-dried bricks. The 
stone portion had a height of from three to twenty-five 
feet, according to the irregularities of the surface 
along which it was built. The upper portion, that 
which was made of sun-dried bricks, was considerably 



THE HILL OF HISSARLIK 399 

higher than three meters. The entire height of the 
wall, therefore, varied from about thirteen to thirty- 
five feet. The houses were of quarried stone, were 
well built, but small. 

The civilization which flourished in this "burnt city" 
was that of the "Bronze" period. Wherever the va- 
rious degrees of civilization are found uninterruptedly 
succeeding each other, the neolithic period is supposed 
to be followed not by the bronze but by the copper 
period. Men learn to use copper before they learn how 
to manufacture bronze. At Hissarlik, however, no 
traces of a copper period are recognizable. The primi- 
tive men of the first settlement may have perished or 
departed before they had begun the use of the metals, 
and the inhabitants of the "burnt city" may have come 
to Hissarlik after they had already discovered not only 
how to use copper, but how to manufacture bronze. 
The use of copper and bronze, however, did not put 
an end to all use of stone for the manufacture of cut- 
ting implements. Stone axes and hammers and celts 
are found here along with similar implements in 
bronze. The potter's wheel was already known, or at 
least during this period was discovered and employed. 

After some great conflagration had wiped this town 
out of existence, three new small settlements succeeded 
each other on top of the ashes and ruins of the "burnt 
city." These were miserable and insignificant com- 
munities whose dwellings were like hovels as compared 
with the mighty citadel of the "burnt city" which had 
preceded them and the splendid "Mykenaeic" town 
which was to be their successor. But nevertheless 
interesting objects of lead and bronze and electrum and 



400 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

silver and purest gold, earrings and bracelets and 
golden goblets have been dug up in strata of earth 
which possibly represent these settlements. Care had 
not been taken at the beginning of the excavations to 
distinguish these strata from each other and from what 
was above and below. The fifth settlement disappeared 
about fifteen hundred years before Christ. 

The ashes, heaps of stones, broken bricks, fragments 
of pottery, all kinds of offal and accumulated dirt and 
dust had raised the surface of the hill to about 50 feet 
higher than the original top, when there came a sixth 
set of inhabitants and constructed a new citadel, a new 
town. By the investigations which Dorpfeld made here 
in the year 1893 this citadel was discovered to have 
been built and inhabited in the age which is called 
"Mykenaeic," an age which by approximative calcula- 
tions may be fixed within the years of 1500 to 1000 
before Christ. The name of this age is taken from the 
Peloponnesian town of Mykense, which during these 
centuries was at the height of its glory. Indeed there 
are many indications which go to show that the lords 
of this sixth town were well acquainted with the other 
"Mykenseic" towns of the ^Egean Sea, and that they 
cultivated commercial intercourse with the merchants 
of the Peloponnesian Tiryns and Mykense, and with the 
Kretan town of Knosos. Two distinct kinds of earth- 
enware articles were in common use in this sixth city. 
One variety was of native manufacture; we may call it 
"Troic." The other was imported, and is of the style 
classed as "Mykenseic." The quantity of Mykenaeic 
wares that were brought in from foreign manufactories 
was considerable. The debris of this sixth or Troic 



THE HILL OF HISSARLIK 401 

town is rich in potsherds. These imported wares were 
so popular that the native manufacturers who produced 
Troic wares found themselves obliged to imitate the 
shapes and varieties of the foreign goods. All of this 
shows that in those days intercommunication by sea 
was easy and frequent among the towns on the shores 
of the ^Egean. These fragments of pottery are highly 
prized by the antiquarians. It is by pottery more than 
by any other finds that this Troic city has been ap- 
proximately dated. 

A high wall, originally of sun-dried bricks, but later 
rebuilt with hewn stone, surrounded the Mykenaeic city. 
Two-thirds of this stone wall with its solid towers are 
still quite well preserved to a considerable height. But 
the northwest portion has been so completely destroyed 
that not even the foundation stones were left. The 
geographer Strabon records an assertion that about 
550 years before Christ the walls of the town of 
Sigeion were erected with stone taken from ancient 
Troy, which then was uninhabited; and that likewise 
the town of Achilleion was built with stone of the same 
provenance. Possibly, therefore, it was under these 
circumstances that the northwest portion of this wall 
was carried away; for as has already been stated, this 
sixth city has been identified as ancient Troy. Three 
magnificent entrance gates are to be seen in the part of 
the wall which is yet preserved. Probably a fourth one 
was in the wall which has disappeared. Of the three 
which are preserved, one looks toward the east, an- 
other to the south, and the third one to the west. The 
missing one would have faced the north. 

This wall did not inclose an extensive area. About 



402 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

20,000 square meters was the extent of the artificial 
surface of the hill. Immediately inside the wall a wide 
street encircled the entire town. Above this street the 
buildings stood on concentric terraces three or four 
in number, each terrace being higher than the one out- 
side it. Narrower streets radiated from the center 
of the town down to the gates and the ring-street near 
the walls. Probably the most important edifices were 
in the middle of the town, on the highest terrace. But 
no traces whatsoever of them have remained, because 
when in Roman imperial times the Greek city, which 
then existed here, was enriched by new buildings, the 
top of the hill was cut of! and the upmost terrace was 
entirely removed. Thus were destroyed whatever 
foundations of Priam's Troy may have then existed on 
that most conspicuous site of the town. 

From such foundations as have been preserved it 
can be seen that the dwelling-houses consisted for the 
most part each of one spacious room, built of stone. 
Each house stood separate. There were no party walls. 
Narrow gangways separated house from house. In 
many of the houses strong earthenware vessels as large 
as the most capacious barrels, stood buried in the clay 
floor of the houses and served as storing-places for 
grain and other articles of food. There were also 
special rooms with groups of such buried vessels. 
These rooms must have been magazines. 

Not even in the sixth settlement was iron used as a 
material for the making of cutting instruments. The 
"Iron Age" had not yet begun. Bronze and copper 
were still the commonest metallic substances. Double- 
edged axes, celts, sickles, lance heads, needles, razors, 



THE HILL OF HISSARLIK 403 

and knives of bronze have been dug up. Likewise the 
more primitive custom of making many articles out of 
stone and bone had not been abandoned. With these 
ancient peoples, as with us, the introduction of a more 
perfect material did not necessarily exclude the con- 
tinued use of previously known and more imperfect 
kinds. 

About one thousand years before Christ Mykenaeic 
civilization began to die out in all of the places of the 
^Egean where it had so long been flourishing. What 
the causes were that brought down this catastrophe 
upon these powerful communities we do not know. 
Like the other Mykenseic cities, so also did Troy cease 
to exist about this time. Indeed it was one of the first 
of these cities to disappear. Possibly the decay of 
many of the other Mykenseic cities was gradual and 
came somewhat later; but the downfall of Troy was 
sudden. The condition of the ruins prove that the city 
did not decay by having been abandoned, but that it 
was destroyed by a foe. Most of it was laid waste 
by a fierce and purposed conflagration. Portions of the 
citadel wall, of the gates, and of the houses are torn 
down in such a way as to show that the work of de- 
struction was not accidental but intentional — the acts 
of an enemy who had captured the town. 

This sixth city is Homer's city of Priam. The 
results of the excavations correspond most minutely 
with what a study of the Iliad compels us to think that 
Troy must have been. The sixth city is proven to have 
been contemporary with Mykenae, where ruled the 
powerful Agamemnon, who led the Achneans in the 
vengeful war against Priam. It is situated on the spot 



404 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

where ancient tradition believed Troy once to have 
been. It perished by being captured and pillaged and 
burned, as the great Epic narrates to have happened 
to Priam's city. One is even inclined to think that per- 
haps the bards who composed the older songs of the 
Iliad were well acquainted with this sixth city or at 
least with its ruins, so true to it and its surroundings 
are their descriptions of Priam's city, the hill, the city 
walls, the towers, the gates, the plain of the Skaman- 
dros, and the sea coast. It is true that there are diffi- 
culties against accepting this intimate acquaintance of 
the poets with this Mykenaeic citadel. For instance, 
the city, as now excavated, was not spacious enough to 
contain the large army of defenders which the later 
parts of the Iliad assign to Troy. But in matter of 
numbers poets may be allowed to have made use of 
their usual license. With Dorpfeld we might trim 
Homer's figures from 50,000 down to 5,000. An 
easier and lazier way, however, of explaining both the 
coincidences and the incongruities is to believe that 
Homer's descriptions are very general and would in 
good part suit any important town of the Mykenaeic 
Age. 

We now take leave of the sixth city, which was 
Priam's, and pass on to the later settlements. After 
the destruction of Troy, the hill remained desolate for 
a time and then was repeopled by inhabitants who still 
followed the lines of waning Mykenaeic civilization. 
But about 700 years before Christ an entirely different 
set of invaders came and occupied the hilltop, putting 
an end to all Mykenaeic life. The nature of the imple- 
ments and pottery which these new-comers made for 



THE HILL OF HISSARLIK 4°5 

themselves leads us to the supposition that they had 
learned their arts in a European region, perhaps along 
the shores of the Danube. These Europeans did not 
build any lasting dwellings here. In part they occupied 
the stone huts of the Mykenseic inhabitants whom they 
may have driven out, and in part they built for them- 
selves shelters of osiers and mud, as they had done 
when living near the Danube. Instruments and utensils 
similar to those of these European squatters on His- 
sarlik are found in Hungary near the Danube, and are 
commonly attributed to post-neolithic times. They are 
peculiarly made earthenware vases, stone hammers, 
axes, celts. 

Who these Europeans were would be hard to im- 
agine, if Strabon did not mention "Treri" as having 
made settlements in the Troad round Abydos, and 
"Kimmerii" as also having come into these same re- 
gions. Now these invasions of Treri and Kimmerii 
that Strabon refers to could well have taken place seven 
or eight centuries before Christ and would well corre- 
spond with the epoch of the arrival of the Europeans 
at Hissarlik. The Treri were a people who dwelt 
south of the Danube, in the country now called Bul- 
garia. The Kimmerii inhabited the country north of 
the Danube, between that river and the shores of the 
Don. So there is some slight reason for conjecturing 
that the strangers who ousted the settlers of the seventh 
town were either Kimmerii or Treri, or both united. 

Concerning the men who dwelt in the several pre- 
ceding settlements, we know very little about their 
nationality and equally little about the languages which 
they spoke. But of those who came and built the 



406 HELLADIAN VISTAS 

eighth town there is no room for the smallest doubt. 
They were of Hellenic race and spoke a Hellenic 
tongue. With the departure of the European squatters 
begins the clearly historical career of this place. The 
Hellenic town was usually called not "Troy" but 
"Ilion." This historically well-authenticated town of 
Ilion never was of active importance in the world. It 
possessed no special fame save what it owned by being 
the occupant of the site of the storied Troy of Priam. 
Its mysterious traditions made it always revered. 
Xerxes when on his way to invade Greece stopped there 
to sacrifice a thousand steers to Iliac Athena, the 
tutelary goddess of the Hellenic inhabitants. Alex- 
ander on his expedition of conquest against Persia 
interrupted his march and turned from his course to 
perform sacred rites at the tomb of Homer's hero, 
Achilles. 

When the Romans became masters of this part of 
the world they showed many favors to the Ilians. The 
Romans were proud of the myths that connected the 
history of Latium and of Rome with ^neas and the 
city of Troy. Under Roman tutelage Ilion was en- 
larged, beautified, and in part rebuilt. This Roman 
city formed the debris of the ninth stratum on His- 
sarlik. The Roman town was larger than any of those 
that had preceded it. The ancient hill was made to 
serve merely as a citadel. Round about the foot of this 
citadel new quarters were built. This lower and spa- 
cious town was protected by a new wall. So much 
did the Romans respect Ilion that Caesar thought of 
removing the seat of empire thither from Rome. 
Augustus rebuilt on a more magnificent scale the splen- 



THE HILL OF HISSARLIK 407 

did temple of Iliac Athena. Roman Ilion continued to 
be inhabited until perhaps about five hundred years 
after Christ. Then under Byzantine rule it dwindled 
away. Under Turkish domination the hill of Hissarlik, 
which for thirty-five centuries had been the abode of 
successive tribes of men, and had been honored by the 
immortal songs of the Homeric troubadours, was 
merely a wind-swept stony height. 



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